The Macon Telegraph from Macon, Georgia • 32

Oeltijrapl) Barbara Stinson Assistant Managing Editor (478) 744 4221 bstinsonmacontelcom Wednesday September 5 2001 Business sc wwwmacontelegraphcom STOCKWATCH DOW JONES 4774 999749 NYSE 171 58955 A 164 113294 Nasdaq 3465 VTIQM 5 JML MORE STOCKS 5C 6C HOE Manufacturing inspired market rally fades NEW YORK Wall hopes for a back to school turnaround fizzled Tuesday after a rally sparked by bettcr than expected man ufacturing data soured in the last hour of trading resulting in only a minimal lift to blue chips Investors once again pun ished the beleaguered technol ogy sector on skepticism about its future prospects Analysts said rallies will likely continue to fail until the business outlook improves irst Union Wachovia complete merger CHARLOTTE Wachovia Corp and irst Union Corp have completed their long planned $143 bil lion merger creating the fourth largest bank The announcement Tues day puts to rest a nasty proxy battle between irstUnion and SunTrust Banks Inc for Wachovia The company which adopted the name Wachovia Corp also announced the individuals who will serve on its 18 meinber board of direc tors The group includes former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles one of nine former irst Union board members and Robert Ingram one of nine former Wachovia directors and the chief execu tive of pharmaceutical opera tions of GlaxoSmithKline PLC a pharmaceutical research and development company in Research Trian gle Park The new company will trade under the ticker symbol WB on the NYSE and be based in Charlotte Rates rise in Treasury bill auction WASHINGTON Interest rates on short term Treasury securities rose in auction The Treasury Department sold $14 billion in three month bills at a discount rate of 3360 percent up from 3350 percent last week An addi tional $13 billion was sold in six month bills at a rate of 3310 percent up from 3290 percent Both the three month and six month rates were the highest since Aug 6 when the bills sold for 3430 percent and 3350 percent respectively eds investigate ord Expedition suspension WASHINGTON The gov ernment is investigating a possible defect in the ord suspension sys tem the same problem that led to a recall of the ord Explorer and Mercury Moun taineer last winter The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received 14 complaints of failure of the front stabilizer bar links in 1997 and 1998 Expeditions The agency esti mates about 437000 of the vehicles are on the road The stabilizer bar connects the left and right front wheel control arms and helps con trol the pitch of the vehicle in turns ord recalled 876413 Explorers and Mercury Mountaineers in December to replace the stabilizer bar links wire reports Boeing gets from activists Protesters stage scene outside new Chicago headquarters By Dave Carpenter Associated Press CHICAGO The Boeing Co opened its new corporate head quarters for business Tuesday becoming Chicago's biggest com pany less than six months after its stunning announcement that it was leaving Seattle for a more cen tral location A day ahead of the official wel coming ceremony by city and Illi nois leaders about three dozen peace activists staged what they called an for the arrival of a company that had $118 billion in military sales last year Protest signs called Boeing a of objected to the $53 million in state and local incentives the company is getting and carried messages such as Makes War and the New Arms Kevin Martin executive direc tor of National Peace Action drew cheers when he declared that Boe ing for and para phrased Dr Seuss to illustrate con tinued opposition to the aerospace and military giant: do not welcome you here do not welcome you there would not welcome you Boeing likely will get a much warmer if less poetic reception today when Mayor Richard Daley and Gov George Ryan are to speak at the downtown office tower on the Chicago River Chairman and chief executive officer Phil Condit whose business trip away from Chicago forced the welcome to be scheduled for day 2 issued a statement saying: is in the midst of many exciting changes and our new world head quarters in Chicago is part of our ongoing transformation We intend to grow our enterprise here and create businesses that open fron tiers and advance technology while allowing our business lead ers in other locations to drive their businesses to their full About 200 Boeing employees began work Tuesday at the new building where Boeing has leased the top 12 of 36 floors That number is expected to grow to no more than 400 or 500 employees just 02 per cent of the workforce with nearly 80000 still in Seattle at commercial airplane manufacturing operations Associated Press A small group of peace activists protest Tuesday outside the new Boeing World Headquarters Wl rfeKlSl Hewlett Packard to buy Compaq By Therese Poletti and Elise Ackerman Knight RidderTribune Business News SAN JOSE Ca Hewlett Packard Co has agreed to buy Compaq Com puter in a $25 billion deal that would make HP the world's leading maker of personal computers servers and printers The combined technology company would have annual revenues of about $874 billion and 145000 employees trailing only IBM in size And if com pleted the merger would help the two struggling companies compete against nimbler rivals such as Sun Microsys tems and Dell Computer The deal is the boldest move yet by Carly iorina who became CEO of HP two years ago and has been trying to shake up the lumbering Palo Alto com puter giant Wall Street has been pressing io rina to dump the money losing PC business this deal doubles bet on the sector which has been suffering one of its worst slowdowns ever Perhaps more significant during the long haul the deal gives HP the leading position in the market for servers the large computers that handle complex tasks and serve data to the Internet and networks of smaller machines price war driven by Dell cou pled with the economic downturn has been hurting both said Rob Enderle an analyst with Giga Information Group in Santa Clara was very clear that Dell would put Compaq out of business At the end of the day both CEOs looked out to the future and like what they The market dominance of the com bined company raises antitrust issues for the deal which must be approved by both US and European regulators In particular the combined company would sell two out of every three PCs in US retail stores and have a leading position in printer sales HP said it will pay about $25 billion in stock for Compaq or 06325 of an HP share for each share of Compaq HP shareholders will own 64 percent of the merged company and Compaq share holders 36 percent The purchase price which works out to $1468 a share is a slight pre mium to riday closing stock price of $1235 HP shares closed at $2321 riday iorina will be chairman and CEO of the combined company and Compaq CEO Michael Capellas will be presi dent our other HP executives Rob ert Wayman Vyomesh Joshi Duane Zitzner and Ann Livermore will get top jobs with Compaq executive Peter Please see MERGER 7C Compaq Chairman and CEO Michael Capellas and HP Chairman and CEO Carly iorina chat Tuesday during an announcement of the strategic merger of their companies to create an $87 billion global technology leader ML Ji I A Knight Ridder CompUSA computer store salesman Paul Witt looks at Compaq and Hewlett Packard comput ers displayed side by side on the showroom floor at his store in Santa Clara Calif ox 24 expands prime time newscast By Cindy Sams Telegraph Staff Writer i Beginn ing later this month 8 WGXA TV will fold its early evening weeknight newscast into an expanded one hour program at 10 pm station officials said Tuesday I The ox affiliate at Chan I nel 24 now airs news shows at i 5:30 pm and 10 pm But the changes which remove the 5 5:30 pm show from the week 1 night lineup consid ered a reduction in program ming said Matt Miller I news director i I would hate to have is perception that going he said 5:30 show moves to 10:30 to 11 expanding where we feel our viewership is greatest where we have the greatest identity the prime time Please see OX 7C Med school applicants drop again By Lindsey Tanner Associated Press CHICAGO Applications to the medical schools fell 37 percent in 2000 in the fourth straight year of decline Attractive jobs in dot coms and information technology along with the prospect of big medical school debts may be among the reasons for the decline said Barbara Barzan sky secretary of the Ameri can Medical medical education council and author of the report Add the increased paper work regulations and Please see APPLICANTS 7C Corporate giving holds steady despite slowdown Sources of charity Charitable contributions by corporations are small compared with those by individuals a recent study shows Breakdown by source 2000: Source Amount Share of total Individuals $15207 billion oundations $2450 billion' 12 Bequests $1602 billion 8 Corporations $1086 billion 5' 2001 KRT Source: American Association of undraising CounselGiving USA 2001 Graphic: The Dallas Morning News By Patricia Rivera The Dallas Morning News DALLAS Betty Vander woude felt the fallout of shrinking stock wealth in January when donations for the Dallas Area Red Cross fell far below usual expectations for that time of the year Overexpenditures in local relief efforts placed the non profit at $500000 below bud get and the prospects of large contributions looked dismal January we were very concerned about what the numbers would look like at the end of the (fiscal) year that ended in June There was so much talk about the declihe of the stock market and the soft economy that we just didn't know what to said Vanderwoude director of development for the Dallas Area Red Cross What she has found is that despite job losses and budget cuts corporations have upheld their financial com mitments The organization which gets 40 percent of its gifts from businesses raised $17 million or 105 percent of its goal Early indicators show that 2001 corporate philanthropy is steady nationwide Chari table organizations say busi growing emphasis on community involvement seems to be safeguarding cor porate giving 10 years ago it would have been the first thing cut because it was really more about writing a big said Cheryl Kiser director of marketing at the Center for Corporate Citizen ship based at Boston College has become so much more visible and strate gic that pulling back would have a huge public perception change on the In a survey released in July by the Chronicle of Phi lanthropy 60 percent of cor porations reported donating about the same as in 2000 Contributions are expected to increase by 41 percent this year the publication reported This follows several years during which the top 400 charities experienced double digit gains in giving Corpo rate contributions increased 121 percent in 2000 to $1086 billion and 13 percent in 1999 Good will aside contribu tions have also remained stable this year as a result of increased perseverance and determination on the part of nonprofit leaders operate just like the corporate world if they think there will be sig nificant drops in the quar terly reports they start maneuvering to take care of these type of she said Still many worry that donations may eventually drop as business leaders con tinue to tighten their belts Kiser of the Center for Cor porate Citizenship said the corporate giving trend has yet to play out wouldn't Please see GIVING 7C A Tr.