THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, July 2, 1996 TAG: 9607020268
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D6 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 73 lines
Tribune Co. said it will buy Renaissance Communications Corp. for $1.13 billion in cash, adding six television stations and accelerating the media company's move away from its newspaper roots. The purchase, for $36 a share, will give Tribune a total of 17 stations. The company, which owns the Chicago Tribune and three other daily newspapers, including the Daily Press of Newport News, will become the No. 1-ranked television station company in terms of potential viewers. While publishing accounts for almost two-thirds of Tribune's revenue, the company is trying to expand in the faster-growing television industry, analysts said. (Bloomberg Business News) Cost containment policy may prove fatal to ValuJet
When an executive of a West Coast aircraft repair company approached ValuJet last year about doing maintenance work on contract, he got a startling lesson on the airline's unwavering attention to cost-cutting. In a conference call, a ValuJet maintenance supervisor offered $13,000 to overhaul a thrust reverser, a crucial engine mechanism that helps slow planes during landings. Other airlines regularly pay at least twice as much to have the part serviced. ``He said, 'Thirteen thousand dollars is what we have budgeted,' '' recalled the repair station executive, who declined the work. ``I said, 'You're not going to get much for that.' '' From its first flight in late 1993 to the day it was grounded two weeks ago, Atlanta-based ValuJet made a religion out of holding down costs, not just on maintenance but on every aspect of its operation. (Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News) Groups renew effort to recall some GM trucks
Two consumer groups contended Monday that General Motors Corp. has not kept its end of a deal with the government that required it to spend $51 million on auto safety programs. However, officials at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which oversees the agreement, and GM said they were pleased with how the deal has worked so far.
GM agreed to the safety-program plan in exchange for the government dropping its probe of alleged defects in GM's C-K model pickup trucks built between 1973 and 1987. Some tests had shown they were susceptible to fire in side-impact crashes because their gas tanks are mounted outside the protection of the frame.
The $51 million deal announced in December 1994 ended the government's investigation of alleged defects in the pickups.
The Center for Auto Safety and Public Citizen now want Attorney General Janet Reno to scuttle the deal. Between 4 million and 5 million of the trucks are still on the road; Transportation Secretary Federico Pena said 150 people had died in crashes that would have been survivable if not for fires caused by the fuel-tank placement. The two groups also said the government's accident database shows 33 people have died fiery deaths in accidents involving the C-K pickup truck since the agreement. NHTSA officials say their accident data base shows 38 people have died since the settlement due to fire from crashes - but that none were from side-impact crashes. (Associated Press) Rite Aid's offer: too little, too late for regulators
Antitrust regulators called it the April Fool's Day joke. Rite Aid Chief Executive Martin Grass had just offered to sell 50 of the 4,500 drugstores his company would own if the Federal Trade Commission approved his company's proposed $1.8 billion purchase of Revco D.S. Inc.
Then, Grass got on a conference call and assured investors that the purchase ``will get done in April.'' What Grass didn't say was that the April 1 proposal was the first time Rite Aid tried to negotiate with the FTC - and four months after the purchase was announced. Three weeks later, the transaction unraveled when the FTC said it would go to court to block the combination of the nation's two biggest drugstore chains. It turned out that the FTC wanted Rite Aid to close or sell 680 stores. Rite Aid eventually offered to get rid of 340. But that was after seven extensions of the antitrust review period, and it was too late. (Bloomberg) by CNB