The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 25

SECTION TODAY IN 1 lb, okni 1 Loa 'y 1) 'p ''144, Lipp Intr. Smart Money 012 Comics Di 4 FYI 016 INE Gerald Prosalendis Business Editor 732-2520 The Weekend Sun Saturday April 12, 1997 E-mail address: gprosalendisgpacpress.southam.ca TODAY IN BUSINESS WIC eh rni slip JOSS Broadcaster restructuring to stay competitive 'in rapidly changing I WIC's share price 26 25 MEE I NINO 24 mon Ati ETZ111111 23 limit A OM. April 11 22 WWII close: $25.25 21 ilmm4 opplimor random zlimmmi April 11 April 11 close: $25.25 I i Courtenay women urges legal action A Courtenay woman whose 71-year-old father stands to lose $50,000 in an Oklahoma real estate project promoted by the now-defunct Waverly Group is urging investors to consider legal action to recover their money. B5 Repap Enterprises shares lost nearly half theirvalue Friday as rumors swirl about the debt-ridden paper company's attempts to find a buyer and suggestions it may have to seek bankruptcy pmtection. B4 Personal Finance The reverse mortgage is one way to give home-owning seniors some security.

But when the property is sold, there may be little or no money left for the estate. Sun Money columnist Michael Kane says Vancouver businessman Ward Jones has an alternative that provides a lump sum or income for life while preserving home equity. Smart Money B12 Jan. 2197 Apr. 1197 Source.

Bloomberg and Festinger said he was looking forward "to getting together with the terrific people I met yesterday afternoon at Vancouver Television, and working through all of the challenges together." CIVT is thought to be the main reason WIC is cutting jobs. A market study done last year for federal regulators estimated existing TV stations in the Vancouver-Victoria market would lose more than $10 million in advertising revenue in the first year of a new station entering the market. In the second year they would lose more than $14 million, and in the third year $19 million. But market growth would restore revenues to current levels by 2002. Stock analyst Murray Grossner said Baton's new station was "the catalyst" for WIC's job cuts.

company put aside $8.3 million in "restructuring costs," meant to pay for employee buyouts and layoffs. WIC will shed 95 jobs by the end of May, 51 at Vancouver's BCTV and Victoria's CHEK, and 44 at its four Alberta TV stations in Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer and Lethbridge. It eliminated another 46 jobs at the six stations earlier. Earlier in the day, rival Baton Broadcasting revealed it has hired WIC's general counsel and corporate secretary, Jon Festinger, as a senior vice-president and general manager of CIVT (Vancouver Television), the new station starting up in the fall. Both Festinger and WIC said the timing of his move was coincidental.

"It's a great opportunity," Festinger said when asked why he's moving. The deal was sealed on Thursday, WILLIAM BOEI Sun Business Reporter WIC Western International Communications reported lower earnings on Friday, decided to chop 95 television jobs and lost a senior executive to its biggest rival. But the Vancouver broadcasting company was upbeat about the future, saying it was restructuring "to compete in the rapidly changing broadcast industry." Net earnings for the six months ended Feb. 28 were $4.3 million, down $1.4 million from the same period last year. Earnings per share were 17 cents, down from 23 cents last year.

The main reason for the lower profits is that the Vancouver bmadcasting "Everybody's piece of the pie is going to get smaller," said Grossner, who's with Canaccord Capital in Toronto. "WIC is just adjusting its cost base down, in line with its revenue base, which they have to do if they want to maintain profit levels. So it's a perfectly prudent response to the introduction of Baton into the Please see WIC, BII Market Monitor As a larger-than-life epic on the big screen, the bizarre saga of Bre-X Minerals Ltd. would be boffo box office. But it has been an expensive form of entertainment, costing investors billions of dollars, damaging the reputations of Bay Street brokerages, and triggered an avalanche of class-action suits by angry investors.

Hydro fund up for grabs Utility's excess export earnings now going directly to government's general revenues. ROD NUTT ROD NUTT GaryLampitier B2 Canadian regains customers Canadian Airlines International has regained most of its customers and has more cash on hand than projected, says Jeffrey Angel, director of corporate communications. "Bookings were non-existent for the first couple of weeks in January because of uncertainty around the restructuring," Angel said Friday. "But the people have really come back." Angel would not release financial data. The airline's first-quarter results will be announced at its annual meeting in May.

But he said cash on hand in the first two months of the year was ahead of projections. "Aftertwo months, things are looking good, but ies a 48-month restructuring plan. We still have a long way to go." Calgary Herald Markets 4 1 :513::::::: 4 irl ti.i I. 11 Eli 1 i li I .1. 4: 1:1 i- v7 .10 i 1r VSE TSE 300 Sun Rumness Reporter The provincial government has effectively scrapped British Columbia Hydro's rate stabilization fund, opening the way for a revenue grab during years when the Crown utility's electricity export levels are high.

An April 3 cabinet order has temporarily amended a previous directive under which revenue in excess of I Iydro's required return on equity and dividend payment to the government was transferred to a rate stabilization fund. But tmder the new order, excess revenue will be transferred directly to the government's general revenues. "In wet years excess revenue will now go directly to the government and not the rate stabilization fund set up to maintain electricity rates in dry years," said Lorne Grasley, director of policy research and finance at the Mining Association of B.C. 1 "I don't want to speculate what will happen in dry years because we may in the future have access to other electricity suppliers." Hydro could apply to the B.C. Utilities Commission for a rate increase in dry years if it is unable to meet its required return-on-equity.

In addition, Hydro must pay 85 per cent of its distributable surplus to the government each year, providing the debt-to-equity ratio is not greater than 80:20. The new order is applicable to the utility's financial year ended March 31, and runs through March 31, 1999. 7 "The government is already taking about $700 14.05 1,065.22 106.47 5,683.64 7.02 342.12 6.84 299.34 TSE 100 TSE 35 1 4 MONTREAL 63.57 2,846.02 DOW 30 148.36 6,391.69 500 20.69 737.65 NASDAQ 28.87 1,206.90 A NIKKEI 361.23 17,846.98 LONDON FT100 42.5 4,270.7 A HANG SENG 157.90 12,516.60 CANADIAN S.0023 5.7152 US (Cdn consumer rate) $1.4124 CANADIAN IN .06 90.24 A UK POUND $.0131 $2.2752 Cdn GOLD (N.Y.) 1.50 $347.20 US SILVER (N.Y.) .05 $4.75 US OIL (W. Tex. Int.) Unchanged $19.58 A NIKKEI 1 nrkinr CANADIAN IN I Please see Hydro, B11 Vancouver Sun DAVID LAM one of the participants at a University of B.C.

workshop. Ti BAMBOO NETWORK The Week That Was Coded Life sells interest in towers Leading economic statistics released this week: CI The value of permits issued by municipalities that include 93 per cent of people in the country hit $1.7 billion in February. That was a 3.9 per cent rise from the January level. The total value of February permits issued, which includes industrial, commercial and institutional projects, was $2.5 billion. LI Housing starts slipped slightly in March but were still at a strong pace compared with a year earlier.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said that if the March rate of starts continued for the full year it would see 158,000 new homes built. The February rate was year ago the rate was just over 120,000. CI Royal Bank of Canada's upbeat spring forecast predicts 700,000 new jobs over 1997 and 1998 and a modest rise in wages will mean a long-awaited revival in the domestic economy. The bank expects Canadian interest rates will stay low and that the Bank of Canada will resist increases because of high consumer debt, which stands at about 95 per cent of after-tax income.

Lam said discrimination means strong alliances were built as a defence mechanism as well as a means of comfort for linguistic strangers in strange lands. Gary Hamilton, a professor at the Universky of Washington, and one of the leading authorities on Chinese business activity, told the seminar that the bamboo network is recent innovation, something that has come into being in the last 20 years as a byproduct of global economic restructuring. Globalization has also led to the creation of Italian, Japanese, German and American networks as companies have evolved from single-product firms into multi- and trans-national corporations. But Hamilton said Chinese networks are different because they are based on centuries' old forms of social relationships and carry with them obligations that went with the old ties. "Chinese networks are different in subtle ways," he said in an interview.

"The Chinese have an expectation of reciprocity and there is no time dimension put on that. So, what you always want to do is be ahead on the number of debts that are owed you as opposed to the debts you owe." While other people aren't necessarily excluded from the bamboo network, Hamilton said most Westerners don't understand BRUCE CONSTANTINEAU Sun Business Confederation Life Insurance Co. has sold its 25- per-cent interest in three Vancouver office towers to OMERS Realty Corp. for more than $35 million. The buildings include the historic Marine Building at 355 Burrard, Oceanic Plaza at 1066 West Hastings and the Guinness Tower at 1055 West Hastings.

Confederation Life has been selling its real estate holdings since it was forced into liquidation in August, 1994. Heavy exposure to commercial real estate weakened the company's finances when values plunged throughout North America during the 1991 recession. Confederation Life real estate director Steve Taylor said the insurance company has had an interest in the three Vancouver office buildings since the mid 19805. He said the properties were the company's major Vancouver holdings but it still has significant assets in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. "Both sides are happy with the transaction and I think we got fair value for what, frankly, is a really great asset," Taylor said in an interview from Toronto.

"They are beautiful buildings and, in some respects, I'm sad to see them go. They have had good occupancy levels and good returns." The transaction was arranged through Colliers Macaulay Nicolls Inc. vice-president Avtar The 21-storey Marine Building, with 173,000 The Chinese have an expectation of reciprocity and there is no time dimension put on that, prof says. DAPHNE BRAMHAM sun Asia-pacific Reporter I t's being called the bamboo network the combination of ethnicity, culture and business that link an estimated 55 million Chinese entrepreneurs around the world who control assets of up to $2 trillion US. And it's something that drew more than 50 academics, scholars and business people to the University of British Columbia on Friday for the first of two days of meetings to talk about what the network is, its roots and the influence it wields globally.

Former lieutenant-governor David Lam called the phrase apt because of the importance of bamboo to Chinese people who use it for everything from scaffolding to chop- sticks to flutes and scholar's pens. But Lam said it's also appropriate because bamboo is one of the hardiest of plants with a root system. And the bamboo network is "one of the benefits of being discriminated again." That discrimination, he said, has largely been from other Chinese; Cantonese against Shanghainese or people like him, of Chiuchow ancestry. Canadian Press Please see Bamboo, Bil Phase see Tower, 1311 Delgratia stock sinks amid drill results query Reduce risk: buy proven franchise If you are planning to start your own business, statistics show you can reduce your risk by buying a proven franchise. Franchises have an 80 per cent success rate while 80 per cent of new business startups fail in the first three to five years, says Richard Cunningham, president of the Canadian Franchise Association.

Franchising has become one of the country's fastest growing sectors, employing more than one million Canadians. To meet demand for information, the association is staging Vancouver's first franchise-only show April 19 and 20 at the Pacific Coliseum. Visitors will be able to check out more than 75 franchise systems including fast food, business services, retail stores and home-based businesses. There will also be hourly seminars on such topics as financing, legal considerations, and how to investigate a franchise. Admission is $10 at the door or $8 for those who pre-register.

For more information, call 331-0609. --MitittletKaste Delgratla plummets 35 30 4 Trading leiter, 25 Mar, 20 $16 Trading aIlec Mar. 2 $16 20 resumes Apr.11 1 Trading resumes ----r-- Apr.11 15 10 5 0 Independent geologist can't say if cores samples were legitimate or had been salted. DAVID BAINES sun Biomes. Reporwr Investors pummelled Vancouver-based Delgratia Mining Corp.

Friday amid new questions about the veracity of the company's drill results on its Nevada gold property. Delgratia shares, halted by Nasdaq officials since March 21, halved to $fl US on heavy volume of 2.2 million shares. Morris Beattie, one of the company's independent geologists, said Friday he couldn't say whether drill core samples were legitimate or had been salted. This appeared to contradict a statement issued by the company before trading resumed that its independent geologists had audited the company's assay results and confirmed they were accurate. Delgratia's share price peaked at $34.75 US on March 19 on the basis of sensational assays from four holes on its Josh project in Nevada.

Then reporters raised questions Charles Ager had failed to disclose that his family is a 50-per-cent owner of Philgold Investments a British Virgin Islands company that received cash and stock worth millions in exchange for the Nevada property. The stock plunged to $16 by March 20. The next day, Nasdaq officials stepped in and halted trading. On Thursday, before trading resumed, Delgratia issued a release stating that Beattie and another independent geologist, Brian Mount-Please see Randomly, B2 I --41 Jan. 3197 Apr.

1197 Sour CO about the company's claim that the deposit contained five million ounces of gold. It was also revealed that president Smart Money online: http:www.vancouversuntom I pppp -a ppp a.