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

DATE: FRIDAY, January 20, 1995                   TAG: 9501200124
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN BUSINESS

RICHMOND - Circuit City Stores Inc.'s venture into the used-car business soon will start renting new cars as well.

Through its subsidiary, CarMax: The Auto Superstore, the Richmond-based electronics retailer will start the rental service initially for corporate accounts and for those needing a car while their automobile is being repaired.

The company is not going after the business dominated by companies such as Hertz and Avis that rent cars mainly to travelers from locations near or at airports.

Circuit City is hiring an auto rental program manager for its CarMax in Henrico County. No date has been set for the service to begin.

- Associated Press

Motorola plant may come to Va.

RICHMOND - Sites near Richmond and Durham, N.C., are finalists for a new semiconductor plant that could employ 5,000 people, according to a published report. But Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Robert Skunda refused to comment on the report this week in The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper quoted a recruiter close to the deliberations as saying a decision on the site was expected by the end of March. The recruiter said the president of Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, Thomas George, visited the North Carolina site last week.

A spokesman for the company's semiconductor division in Phoenix, Ariz., said the company planned to expand both in the United States and abroad, but declined to discuss specifics. Motorola's semiconductors are used in a range of consumer products including pagers and cellular phones, said spokesman Jeff Gorin.

- Associated Press