The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 39

The Sacramento Bee Friday November 7 1 986 I Insurance aid for imner-dfy drivers the plan and that no-interest premium payment plans are available In the past some consumers have been forced to pay fees and interest Gillespie said George Tye executive manager of the As- sociation of California Insurance Companies said he could not comment specifically on the proposal without seeing it But he warned that as rates for bad drivers increase so does the likelihood that they will drive without any insurance He also stressed that participation in CAARP already costs insurance companies money He said State Farm which insures 15 percent of the assigned-risk drivers in California paid out $174 for every dollar of CAARP revenues in the first six months of See INSURE pageB12 erage for drivers who cannot buy insurance elsewhere Under the key provision of program insurance companies would agree to write policies at market rates in high-risk inner-city areas In return they would be excused to the extent they write such policies from participating in the state-controlled assigned risk plan The program was submitted to the Office of Administrative Law on Thursday Gillespie said she is hoping for approval before the end of the year In particular drivers in central Los Angeles which includes Watts and in portions of Oakland are expected to benefit from the changes There will be only limited effect in the Central Valley where insurance rates are generally lower Besides offering partial exemptions from the assigned-risk plan Gillespie has proposed that assigned-risk rates be lowered for drivers with clean driving records and increased for accident-prone drivers For Hie highest cost assigned-risk driver a young male the annual rate would drop 24 percent from $1089 to $826 in the case of a clean driving record The annual rate for a typical adult with a clean record would drop from $759 to $680 A driver with a bad record could pay as much as $600 more than the good driver depending on how bad the record is Said Gillespie want to make insurance more accessible for people who find themselves in CAARP for no other reason than the area in which they The commissioner has also proposed that assigned-risk plans specify in writing that no brokerage fees can be added to the cost of By Ted Reed Bee Staff Writer Insurance Commissioner Roxani Gillespie on Thursday introduced a program intended to cut auto insurance costs as much as 24 percent for some drivers in inner cities problem in auto insurance is that you have the highest price for insurance in the same areas where you have the people least able to pay for Gillespie told The Bee we have done is to address insurance prices through the California Automobile Assigned Risk Plan which is the one area where the state has control of insurance The assigned risk plan forces insurance companies to provide minimal liability cov I Sale on track An employee of East auction house in New York produced The trains are part of a 4000-piece collection holds two Lionel Pullman cars which date to from the estate of the late Charles Gasque of South Caroli-1929 and are considered some of the finest toy trains ever na Christies will auction them off Saturday Associated Press Time Inc Raiders grab stake in I Goodyear buyback Goodyear Tire Rubber Co stepped-up its restructuring effort Thursday saying it planned to repurchase up to 183 percent of its stock The company also said it might divest its aerospace and motor-wheel subsidiaries and it already has said it plans to sell its Celeron Corp energy unit Goodyear launched the restructuring last Goldsmith week after a group led by Sir James Goldsmith an Anglo-French financier said it owned 1 1 5 percent of stock and was interested in acquiring the tiremaker Allied division Developer Robert Campeau Thursday said he will sell minority interests in Brooks Brothers and Ann Taylor to the public but will not sell five shopping centers owned by Allied Stores Corp which he won in a takeover fight Campeau said in a telephone interview he likely would reduce debt by divesting some assets and selling the public equity in the two high-fashion chains owned by Allied Debt increases Americans lured by unusual low-interest auto financing incentives increased their short-term installment debt by 174 percent at an annual rate in September up sharply from the revised 71 percent rate in August the Federal Reserve Board said Thursday Wells sells unit Wells Fargo Co says it plans to sell the corporate trust and stock-transfer business it acquired last spring in its merger with Crocker National Corp The business which Wells says does not fit its core business strategy would be acquired for an undisclosed price by BT Trust Co of California NA a subsidiary of Bankers Trust New York Corp Digital network Digital Equipment Corp moving to extend the networking capabilities of its smaller computers said Thursday it has introduced new software to link its MicroVax II and VAXstation II systems Digital also said it plans to buy back about 4 percent of its shares for use in its employee stock ownership plan In short Apple Computer still fighting to find its niche in the highly competitive personal computer market said Thursday that profits for its current quarter likely will be the same as last but added it expects a 20 percent jump in sales next year Burroughs Corp said Thursday it plans to sell part of its Memorex data-storage business to an international group of Memorex executives and New York investor Eli Jacobs for about $550 million The nation's basic money supply rose $17 billion in late October the Federal Reserve Board reported Thursday The dollar fell against most key currencies Thursday in a nervous session Gold prices rose GTE Corp responding to speculation that an investor might be amassing a major stake in the firm said Thursday it planned to raise its dividend 13 percent and repurchase up to 47 percent of its common stock Chevron Corp which froze hiring and pay early this year as part of a retrenchment that will eliminate 9000 jobs has said in an in-house publication that it will lift the freezes Jan 1 The major retailers reported Thursday that retail sales especially those of apparel picked up in October as stores heavily promoted leftover fall merchandise Grant Thornton the former auditing firm for ESM Government Securities Inc whose collapse led to a run on deposits in Ohio savings and loans last year has been ordered to pay $709 million in damages Bee News Services INSIDE Insider gets jail term B12 A former executive at Shearson Lehman Brothers was sentenced to a year in jail for his part in the Dennis Levine insider stock trading scheme Aerojet starts Titan work B12 Stock listings B13-B15 Owners shift at TV 40 By Larry Hicks Bee Staff Writer Long-time Sacramento broadcaster Jack Matranga has swapped his part ownership in television station KTXL Channel 40 to head a young station in Portland Ore it was announced Thursday The deal calls for Matranga to relinquish his 20 percent stake in Ca-' mellia City Telecasters Inc to his partner Assurance Co (BMA) which owns 80 percent oL Camellia BMA is a $412 million insurance company based in Kansas City Mo In addition to Channel 40 Camel- lia City operates two other indepen- dent UHF stations KDVR Channel 31 in Denver and KPDX Channel 49 in Portland-Vancouver BMA would assume sole ownership of the Denver and Sacramento stations and transfer its interest in the PortlandVancouver area station to a management group headed by Matranga It was not revealed whether the deal involved cash nor when and if Matranga who was unavailable for comment would relinquish his role as president of Channel 40 In a written statement Thomas Grant Jr president and chief execu- five officer of BMA said the broad-! cast realignment would be presented to his board of directors -Nov 12 The restructuring according to Grant should have a favorable af- feet on efforts to produce a positive cash flow and earnings from BMA broadcast operations Grant also noted that the plan is timely in light of the continuing impact of higher programming costs and weak advertising revenue The most immediate effect of restructuring would be to eliminate losses from operations in Portland and minimize the impact of broadcasting on operating in- come he said A Channel 40 spokesman had no details on financial losses suffered through the Camellia partnership As a result of the transfer of own- See TV 40 page B12 operations in Fremont in 1984 The Fremont facility which produces more than 900 Chevrolet Novas every day is recognized as one of the nation's most productive auto plants In May workers at the Van Nuys plant narrowly approved a contract calling for the -team concept in which workers are given major responsibilities and input in plant op-" erations Under the concept workers are broken! down into teams of four to eight members Each team is given responsibility for one facet of the production line and all individu-als are cross-trained to do all tasks handled by the team Each member is authorized to stop the assembly line if any quality problems are detected Bruce Lee a director with the United Au- to Workers union in Los Angeles said the I concept is a radical departure "In the past GM would tell the how and when to do it" he said "But here the team comes up with the most efficient way to do it" The company currently Is training workers to function in the new system and ex- pods to begin using it in March or April Schaefer said "It's something that's never been done in -an auto plant still operating" he said Schaefer said he and other plant officials have been working for the past 18 months to 1 convince GM officials In Detroit that the concept would work vate in a leveraged buyout and Coniston made a profit of about $40 million This year it amassed a major stock position about 12 percent of Viacom International Viacom to escape an unfriendly takeover has since worked out a deal with the board to do a leveraged buyout In the process Coniston which has disposed of all its Viacom stock made a profit of about $50 million Augustus Oliver a Coniston partner declined comment A spokesman for Time said the company was unaware of any reason for its stock rise He did note though that the stock may have benefitted from the decision to abandon plans to publish its a new magazine Picture Week which has been poorly received in market testing Japan methods spare Van Nuys from GM ax i stock was a star performer in market rising $425 to $7775 This followed a gain of $1872 on Wednesday The 52-week low is $5750 the 52-week high $9137i2 An aggressive move to force change at a major media company would not be a new strategy for Coniston which in the past has taken stock positions in two large media companies Storer Communications and Viacom International Storer subsequently went private through a leveraged buyout and Viacom is currently in the process of doing the same Last year Coniston had taken a 53 percent position in Storer It pushed for liquidation of the company in a proxy fight and gained four board seats Later Storer decided to go pri Bee file Charles Schwab is preparing an offer to buy back his discount brokerage acquisition is Schwab who founded the brokerage in 1974 and sold It to BankAmerica for $55 million in cash and stocks BankAmerica which has posted losses so far this year of $600 million in recent weeks has launched an aggressive campaign to sell assets it has deemed nonessential to the bank's core business Analysts said BankAmerica may be forced to come up with a major sale this quarter to offset delays in the sale of its Italian banking unit that could cause a $100 million quarterly loss The analysts estimate BankAmerica could receive $250 million to $300 million by selling Schwab for a pretax gain of $200 By Dan Dorfman News American Syndicate Conislon Partners an aggressive New York-based investment firm has taken a sizable stake in Time Inc reportedly at least 4 percent and possibly more than 5 percent Sources say investment could be used to force a major corporate restructuring of Time such as a leveraged buyout or perhaps even an acquisition of the media giant Time a long-rumored takeover candidate publishes such well-known magazines as Time Fortune Sports Illustrated Money and People and owns the Book-of-the-Month-Club and Home Box Office Its 1986 sales are estimated at $375 billion Schwab to bid for brokerage from Bof A LOS ANGELES (UPI) Charles Schwab Co said Thursday it is preparing an offer to buy back its business from BankAmerica Corp which confirmed it is considering sale of the brokerage subsidiary Charles Schwab founder of the firm he sold to BankAmerica in 1983 said the plan was being prepared with the idea that is absolutely mandatory that an orderly transfer of ownership be accomplished" In a reversal of its previous position BankAmerica spokesman Art Miller said the bank would consider selling its Schwab unit as part of an aggressive campaign to shore up its deteriorating financial position by selling non-essential assets "Assuming a suitable purchaser is ready to recognize the full value of the company we would consider the sale of Miller said "If not Schwab is a good profit contributor to the corporation and could be expected to remain so" As recently as three weeks ago Bank-America's top management declared It would not sell Schwab long considered off-limits to potential suitors and one of the beleaguered bank's brightest stars clients number 12 million and generated revenue for the discount brokerage of $202 million last year for pretax earnings of $207 million According to a published report board has decided It Is time to selj Among the leading candidates for the By Bob Shallit Bee Staff Writer Some 2700 auto workers in Southern California will retain their jobs next year thanks to Japanese management techniques Officials said Thursday that the General Motors plant in Van Nuys will be remain open while 11 others are closed nationally because workers at the Los Angeles-area plant agreed to try out a Japanese-pioneered concept" designed to boost productivity Earlier in the day GM Chairman Roger Smith announced the closures of the 11 other plants and metal fabrication operations and layoffs of about 29000 employees The Van Nuys plant the last domestically operated auto factory on the West Coast was considered a prime candidate for closure before Thursday's announcement because of the high costs of shipping parts from the Midwest to California But Earnest Schaefer the Van Nuys plant manager said company and union officials convinced GM that the team concept will make the plant competitive "If we're successful then this plant has nothing to worry Schaefer said at a press conference In an earlier interview with The Bee Schaefer said the operations will be modeled after those at New United Motors Manufacturing Inc (NUMMI) the successful GM-Toyota Joint venture tat started up.