The Sacramento Bee from Sacramento, California • 26

I 0 The Sacramento Bee Friday April 12 1996 Classified FRIDAY Charaed 13 sold for 7th time Briefing DOW 30 109 Closed at 548707 and recently has been plagued by poor network prime-time ratings Sinclair is paying about 12 times River cash flow of about $100 million for the past 12 months in line with other recent acquisitions in the television and radio industries said Mark McFadden an analyst at BT Securities Evergreen Meclia paid a similar ratio three months ago when it bought radio broadcaster Pyramid Communications Inc The sale of River City Broadcasting is another in a growing list of major television and radio deals made possible by the recent telecommunications act which loosened ownership restrictions Bee wire services contributed to this them to remain on the acquisition The stock which began trading publicly in June at $21 a share has risen about 54 percent David Smith chief executive of Sinclair and his family own about 75 percent of 38 million shares outstanding Channel 13 general manager Steve Gig-liotti said the deal should help the local station no doubt this makes us a much stronger player in the he said River City which purchased Channel 13 in 1994 from Continental Broadcasting Ltd for an estimated $120 million pledged a period of stability and growth but it never materialized The CBS affiliate has struggled in local news ratings for years By Dan Vierria Bee TV Writer Channel 13 (KOVR) was adopted by its seventh owner since 1980 when it was announced Thursday that Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group had purchased River City Broadcasting of St Louis for a reported $12 billion The deal is subject to FCC approval By purchasing River Channel 13 and eight other TV stations Sinclair becomes the seventh-largest TV ownership group in the country with 29 stations It now reaches almost 15 percent of US television households in markets including Baltimore San Antonio and Co- lumbus Ohio Sinclair also purchased its first radio stations acquiring River 34 stations The company will rank among the top 10 in the country in number of radio stations owned or operated (through management agreements) stock soared $5 or 18 percent to $3225 as the Baltimore-based broadcaster vowed to build itself into one of the largest TV and radio companies Analysts applauded second purchase in a month extremely bullish on Sinclair I view it as a bellwether stock in the television said analyst Paul Sweeney at Wheat First Butcher Singer fully expect Uneasiness out inflation fronl Producer prices Index of finished goods prices 1982100 Seasonally adjusts 131 Change from previous month Mar 0 5 Feb -02 Jan 03 111 I III A different kind of risky flight Catering to those with an in-flight urge to lay down a bet British Airways and I Singapore Airlines are installing elec- tronic gambling machines on some of their jetliners I Beginning sometime next year passen- gers 18 or older will be able to use their credit cards to play poker blackj ack roulette and slot games from their seats the Business Times newspaper reported Thursday While the machines could earn millions of dollars a year for the two most profitable airlines both said the main purpose is pro- vide additional diversions for passengers t- I Samurai report reaps lawsuit Suzuki Motor Corp sued the publisher of Consumer Reports for defamation al-f leging the criticism of the Samurai sport vehicle drove it off the US market I The suit filed in Los Angeles federal attacks a 1988 report in the maga-I zine that said the Samurai was prone to I roll over Despite what Suzuki contends I is mounting evidence that the original re-J port was wrong the Consumers Union of the US has repeated its assertions at least 20 times over the past year 1 1 1 are simply not going to stand by -and continue to let them falsely single us said Suzuki General Counsel George Ball Suzuki contends the original article caused the rapid decline in the sales from 77793 in 1988 to 1300 in 1994 the last full year the car was sold in the US The car is still sold in more than 100 other countries Troubled? Fidelity profits soar Despite a series of highly publicized missteps and a recent spate of poor fund performances a booming bull market and robust institutional inflows helped Fidelity Investments post record profits last year and outperform many of its rivals Fidelity the largest mutual fund company said its net income rose $4311 million in 1995 up 25 percent from the same period the year before Revenue increased 23 percent to $428 billion from $348 billion and customer assets shot past the half-trillion mark believe outlook is as bright as it has ever wrote Fidelity chairman Edward Johnson III in a letter to shareholders OND JFMAMJ ASOND 1994 1995 Source Bureau of Labor Statistics New York Times WASHINGTON Retail sales were strong in March a group reported Thursday as inflation jitters grew in the wake of a government report that said producer prices took a sizable jump last month Contributing to the uneasiness was another daily rise in the price of oil as well as increases for various grains and metals There was also a bigger drop than expected in first-time claims for unemployment insurance in the week ended last Saturday Summing up the mixed evidence which caused a brief deterioration of the bond market analysts said reassuring figures for last month did little to offset current price surges people think on the way even if they get it in this from the Labor Department said Edward McKelvey senior economist at Goldman Sachs He pointed to limited advances in grain futures and another peak for the price index compiled by the Commodity Research Bureau a unit of Knight-Ridder The prices paid to producers of finished goods rose five-tenths of 1 percent last month according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics more than reversing Associated Press ft two-tenths of 1 percent decline But when the volatile energy and food components are ppt aside the so-called core Producer Price Index edged up just one-tenth of 1 percent the fourth straight month without significant change food and energy clearly and plainly obvious that inflation is well said Paul A McCulley chief economist for UBS Securities in New York And the retail sales figures for March were interpreted by some Please see ECONOMY page F2 Karen and Edward Porrazzo of Chain Reactions Inc display their new fertility test Fertility frontier Local couple markets reusable test device By Yvonne Chiu means it is a fertile day Other patterns Japan markets boom for US automakers indicate it is not The product is innovative in that this is the first time women can look at these patterns themselves other related systems require doctors to examine the samples under a high-powered mi-INSIDE croscope HIV saliva test The device which PageF2 sells for $5995 in- eludes an instruc tional booklet that offers several possible patterns to which users match their own samples The Porrazzos have already distributed about 1000 to several local health-product stores and to offices Sunshine Natural Foods in Fair Oaks has Please see FERTILITY pageF2 Bee Staff Writer are you ferning? Is it a good time or Those are questions Citrus Heights-based inventors Edward and Karen Porrazzo would like to hear among couples using their new fertility device The PFT 1-2-3 recently introduced to the general market is a testing device that women can use daily to discover whether they are fertile or not Shaped like a triangle the PFT 1-2-3 is hand-held and reusable To use it women can either lick the three colored disks or place samples of vaginal mucus on them A tiny magnifying glass on the device helps reveal the crystalline patterns the bodily fluids form upon drying A pattern resembling fern branches an area that has stymied his predecessors for 20 years are clearly tinged with politics Sen Bob Dole his Republican opponent in November is already talking about stricter enforcement of trade accords the numbers are promising enough for Clinton to make a case that his brinksman-ship with Tokyo is beginning to pay off LZ Asked why the president will be personally appearing to talk about mufflers roof racks and auto repair the White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters Thursday: got bragging rights so claim them Is that straightforward Please see TRADE page F2 New York Times WASHINGTON Ten months after the United States reached a high-stakes accord with Japan over automobile trade President Clinton is set to announce that sales of American cars in the Japanese market have surged 50 percent and that Japanese automakers have begun buying far larger quantities of American parts Clinton will make a formal announcement of the figures in the White House today administration officials said Thursday The announcement will come two days before Clinton departs on his second state visit to Japan While his claims of success in i In short SBC Communications Inc and Pacific Telesis Group submitted detailed information to the Department of Justice on Thursday about their proposed $167 billion merger Eli Lilly Co has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against a generic drug manufacturer Barr Laboratories of New Jersey which wants to market a cheaper version of the top-selling antidepressant Prozac Ford Motor Co will boost its stake in Mazda Motor Corp to 33 percent from 24 percent Shares in Yahoo Inc one of the small firms that developed an easy way to find information on the Internet sold for an initial price of $13 Thursday Home Shopping Network Inc said the Securities and Exchange Commission ended a three-year investigation into the cable-television retailer without taking any action New Jersey said Thursday it will become the eighth state to sue tobacco companies in a bid to recover money spent through Medicaid to treat illnesses 1 Berkshire Hathaway Inc the insurance and investment company controlled by billionaire Warren Buffett agreed to acquire Kansas Bankers Surety Co for about $75 million Kansas Bankers said Bee news services Clinton proposes pension perks to entice small firms wnHki 1 fl i i jr if 5 Some details of plan Here are some of the changes President pension proposal would make Allow workers to make $5000 tax-free contribution to a retirement plan annually An employer can either contribute 3 percent of the salary or 1 percent plus a match of up to 5 percent of the salary Allow workers to carry over their 401 (k) retirement savings plans from job to job Allow workers to withdraw money from 401 (k) savings accounts without tax penalties to spend on first homes children's education and retraining Allow relatives who work In family businesses to earn their own retirement benefits Bee news services Knight-Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON Responding to economic anxiety in this election year President Clinton unveiled a set of proposals Thursday to make private pensions for workers more available and secure One of his proposals would encourage small businesses to offer employees a new simplified 401(k) pension plan Another would make it easier for employees to transfer their pension savings from job to job this will not require congressional approval and will be done by executive authority A third would expand incentives for workers to open Individual Retirement Accounts Still others would stiffen regulatory safeguards against misuse of pension funds The outlook for proposals is clouded by politics The Republican Congress has ignored his ideas for expanding Please see PENSION page F5 INSIDES Dow makes a meager gain F2 It was a mixed day on Wall Street with the Dow average posting a one point gain But several sectors including airline issues suffered declines INDEX Sacramento Business F2 F3-5 Stocks listings ike? Associated Press President Clinton outlines his proposal to open pension plans tcmore Americans Thursday In the Rosie Garden of the VThlte House 4' tsssrsnaca.