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

DATE: THURSDAY, March 16, 1995                   TAG: 9503160060
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN BUSINESS

Yokohama Tire Corp.'s plant in Salem will make tires to be used as an original-equipment option on the upscale Carisma sedan, which Mitsubishi Motors will begin producing in the Netherlands. The operation, to begin production in May, is a joint venture with Sweden's Volvo and the Dutch government.

Yokohama said the Mitsubishi contract is its first for mass-production, original-equipment tires in Europe. It said its reputation for quality and its strong brand image in Europe were decisive factors in the contract, which calls for high-performance Yokohama A460 tires.

Yokohama Tire Corp. is a subsidiary of the Yokohama Rubber Co. Ltd. of Japan. Its only U.S. plant is in Salem, where it employs about 800 production workers.

- Staff report

UPS to open $14 million facility

NEWPORT NEWS - United Parcel Service will open a $14 million computerized package-tracking operation in June that will have 840 employees.

Alan Witt, chairman of the Newport News Industrial Development Authority, said the authority will buy the 105,000-square-foot former Kmart store and rent it to UPS for 10 years. UPS executives say they will hire an independent contractor to run the facility, which they expect to employ 1,000 workers by 1997. Workers will earn between $8.25 and $11.25 an hour.

City officials said the facility is a prototype in which employees will track the Atlanta-based company's packages during the shipping process.

- Associated Press

Lockheed Martin merger is complete

CHICAGO - Shareholders of Martin Marietta Corp. and Lockheed Corp. gave final approval Wednesday to complete a merger that creates the nation's largest defense contractor.

Company officials said they would immediately begin closing redundant or underused plants and making layoffs. Reports have estimated that 17,000 jobs would be affected, although the company says it won't give details until June.

The $10 billion merger creates Lockheed Martin Corp., a Bethesda, Md.-based company with combined annual sales of about $23 billion and 170,000 employees.

- Associated Press

Va. outlet company agrees to buyout

MONROE, Mich. - Muskegon, Mich.-based Horizon Outlet Centers Inc., which owns five outlet shopping centers in Michigan, is about to become the nation's largest developer of such outlets.

Horizon has agreed to buy Virginia-based McArthur/Glen Realty Corp. in a stock swap valued at about $304 million.

The combined company, HGI Realty Inc., will own and operate 33 outlet centers across the United States.

The buyout will give HGI a 20 percent share of the factory-outlet center market, which rang up $11 billion in sales last year and is the fastest-growing segment of the shopping-center industry.

- Knight-Ridder/Tribune