THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 27, 1994 TAG: 9406250146
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BUSINESS WEEKLY STAFF
DATELINE: 940627 LENGTH: Medium
BB&T and Virginia Beach-based Commerce Bank said they had approved an offer of BB&T stock valued at $111 million, or $40.78 a share, for the common stock of Commerce. The price of Commerce shares jumped $4 in active trading Friday to close at $36.50.
{REST} According to the merger agreement, Commerce will become a unit of a new bank holding company, BB&T of Virginia Inc., which will be based in Hampton Roads.
\ Norfolk Naval Shipyard may end up storing some of the Navy's spent nuclear fuel for up to 40 years.
The Portsmouth yard is being considered as a storage site for the fuel rods removed from nuclear-powered Navy ships during refueling or decommissioning, the U.S. Department of Energy said.
Refueling occurs at both Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Newport News Shipbuilding. It is unclear whether the Portsmouth yard would accept waste from Newport News.
The Portsmouth yard is one of several locations being considered by the Energy Department and the Navy as an interim storage site.
\ Goodman Segar Hogan Hoffler, a commercial real estate giant in Hampton Roads announced a merger with a Richmond company that would create one of the largest commercial real estate firms in the state by the end of summer.
The acquisition of Virginia Realty and Development Co., a 24-year-old firm, will form a company with 15.5 million square feet of commercial property under leasing or management in the Southeast. The deal will sharply strengthen Goodman Segar Hogan Hoffler's foothold in Richmond, something lacking from its extensive regional portfolio.
Details, such as the name of the new company and any stock exchange, are being hammered out.
\ Military Circle mall in Norfolk, one of the region's oldest and largest retail centers, will soon be under a new manager and have one fewer owner.
Two prominent real estate management companies, from Minnesota and North Carolina, will bid by the end of the month to manage the Norfolk mall.
The current mall manager, Rouse Co. of Maryland, owns a stake in Military Circle and wants to sell off its interest to its two partners. It is hoped that the management restructuring will invigorate the aging mall, which, industry analysts say, has been fighting perceptions of high crime.
\ Bell Atlantic Corp.'s much-ballyhooed network for delivering movies on demand and other video services to Hampton Roads will cost it $75 million to build over the next three years, the company estimates.
But if projections are right, the expense of building the ``video dial tone'' network will be well worth it.
The company predicts that its new network, which it says will be available to 169,000 Hampton Roads businesses and residential customers by 1997, will make a small pretax profit on operations by 1998. By 2004, Bell Atlantic predicts more than $68 million a year in operating profits from the Hampton Roads network.
\ Continental Airlines, which lured thousands of new travelers to Norfolk International Airport with rock-bottom prices, has quietly been pushing up fares.
Round-trip fares on many of the routes served by Continental's no-frills, high-frequency service have risen $10 to $30 this month. Many of the increases came earlier this month, and other carriers have followed suit.
Continental touched off a price war in Norfolk and other East Coast cities last fall when it introduced its low-fare service, dubbed CALite. The idea was to keep costs low by using planes at a higher frequency on short routes.
by CNB