Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, December 17, 1994                   TAG: 9412190044
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN BUSINESS

First Union National Bank of Virginia opened its new branch at Tanglewood Mall on Friday, in a free-standing building on the Ogden Road side of the mall parking lot that previously housed an office of the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles.

First Union said it spent $750,000 on interior renovations and an exterior face lift for the 18-year-old building. The 6,100-square-foot branch, which employs 14 people, is the second-largest - after the main office downtown - of First Union's 15 Roanoke Valley branches.

First Union has closed the building that housed its nearby branch on Virginia 419, and accounts and lock boxes have been moved to the new branch. The three-lane drive-through building adjoining the closed branch remains open.

-Staff report

Bankruptcies

Four bankruptcies with business affiliations have been filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Western Virginia at Roanoke. Two of them are personal bankruptcies that the court listed as businesses because they have commercial connections and could be of interest to business creditors and customers.

Kidd's Energy Sales Inc., a coal-leasing business at North Tazewell, sought liquidation. Edward Addair, president, reported no assets but liabilities of $1,489,581.

Derick G. Allen and Donna Lynn Allen of Marion asked for liquidation with assets of $48,125 and liabilities of $52,720. They operate a cleaning service.

Parley Howell and Della V. Howell of Pulaski filed for a wage-earner plan for repayment of debts, showing assets of $33,100 and liabilities of $29,358. Parley Howell hauls coal and wood.

Jeffrey Howard McConnell and Sheryl Ann McConnell of Dungannon filed for liquidation with assets of $3,100 and liabilities of $43,093. Jeffrey McConnell is a self-employed carpenter.

Briefly ...

Landmark Communications Inc., Norfolk-based parent of the Roanoke Times & World-News, said Friday it has bought a minority interest in Physicians' On-line Inc., a health care media company based in Tarrytown, N.Y., that provides free clinical information to doctors, including a data base of medical abstracts from the National Library of Medicine. The service is supported by pharmaceutical companies, which pay to advertise on it. Physicians On-line, which began this year, has 40,000 subscribers.

Intel Corp., maker of the flawed Pentium computer chip, has been sued by Representatives Electronic Products (REP), an electronics wholesaler in Livonia, Mich. The suit, which seeks class-action status, also targets Dell Computer Corp. of Texas. REP said it bought a Dell computer and learned later that it was equipped with a defective Pentium processor.