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BEHIND THE NEWS: Housing slowdown roils state’s mortgage industry

Home lending might sound like a staid business. But anyone weathering the changes now sweeping through the Indiana mortgage market knows otherwise. Last year, we saw the sale of two huge Indiana-based home lenders-Fort Wayne-based Waterfield Mortgage and Fishers-based Irwin Mortgage. Also sold was Carmel-based Oak Street Mortgage, which not long ago had been a high-flier poised to go public. These weren’t cases of owners cashing out at the top of the market. Quite the contrary. Irwin Mortgage had become…

Charity sees hope in Third World ‘micro’ lending

In the village of Armenia, in western El Salvador, the Barahona Bautista family last month got a $246 loan to start a pig
farm from Ambassadors for Children. Micro loans are new to Ambassadors, which assists children in more than a dozen countries.

VC expert: Businesses enjoy ‘seller’s market’: In Q&A, private-equity veteran Scolnik discusses industry trends

With $116.5 million in capital under management, Hammond Kennedy Whitney & Co. Inc. is Indiana’s largest private equity firm focused on mergers and acquisitions. It regularly creates $5 million to $15 million deals to buy small and middle-market manufacturing companies with low risk of technical obsolescence. Founded in 1903, HKW maintains its headquarters in New York, but the bulk of its operations and activities are in Indiana. Its portfolio includes the Indianapolis-based centrifuge-maker CentraSep Technologies and corrugated sheet manufacturer Flutes…

Entrepreneur’s fortune cookie biz grows by breaking tradition

Fulfilling a wish list was how Mike Fry came to found Indianapolis-based Fancy Fortune Cookies, by all accounts the only non-Asian-owned
fortune cookie operation in North America. Fry started Fancy Fortune Cookies near Fort Wayne in 1989. He moved the company
to Indianapolis in 1992.

LESSONS LEARNED: ‘GIVE BACK’ANDY MEDLEY AND SCOTT HILL co-owners, CIK Enterprises LLC

Small-business owners have plenty on their plates-like finding customers and keeping them happy. But CIK Enterprises partners Scott Hill and Andy Medley have found room for a heaping helping of generosity, too. The west-side direct marketing firm has a program in place that directs 1 percent of monthly profit to local charities, a seemingly small number that nevertheless is growing along with the 7-year-old company. That’s the idea. “Capitalism has a negative connotation as something that’s profitdriven and cut-throat,” Medley…

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Browse Firefox to open some windows on the world

Do you even know that there’s a browser in common use besides Microsoft’s Internet Explorer? If not, don’t feel bad. IE has some 80 percent of the browser market, if “market” can be defined as “where you give everything away to get mind share.” Frustrated with Microsoft and IE, the techies of the world have written their own browser through a mighty effort coordinated by Mozilla, a California-based not-forprofit (www.mozilla.com). It’s called “Firefox.” Currently, it has roughly 15 percent of…

Pension changes fill state’s VC coffer: Indiana Investment Fund has $155 million to pour into Hoosier companies

The diversification of the state’s two enormous public pension funds into private equity is transforming Indiana’s venture capital sector. And their $155 million Indiana Investment Fund is the largest factor in the equation. If it’s successful, the Indiana Public Employees’ Retirement Fund and the Indiana State Teachers’ Retirement Fund will save Hoosiers untold millions of dollars and help launch a host of new high-tech companies. If it’s not, taxpayers will one day have to foot the bill. Indiana State Budget…

Minimum wage set to increase: Small-business owners bracing themselves for change

Jeff Coppinger just can’t support legislative efforts to raise the minimum wage. Part-time employees at his Lazy Daze Coffee House in Irvington start at $6 an hour and top out at about $8-well over the $5.15 hourly minimum. But he knows that won’t be good enough if a pending federal rate change passes. “In the past, I’ve always been a champion for raising the minimum wage,” said Coppinger, who opened his business in 2003. “But now that I’m in business,…

County property tax hit looming

Taxes on Marion County commercial and industrial properties soon may go up sharply. The Indiana Department of Local Government
Finance, which oversees the state property tax system, has ordered a complete reassessment of the county's commercial
and industrial properties.

STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Events outside the Capitol shape final days of session

As I write this, we have no way of knowing what the 2007 session of the Indiana General Assembly will mean for gambling, property tax relief or the biennial budget-the three overarching items looming over the heads of lawmakers as they entered their final week of deliberations. But that won’t prevent us from making a few pertinent observations about the context, and how that atmosphere was shaping events. Each legislative session possesses a flow of its own, based on incidents,…

Conner Prairie testing ideas for new exhibits: Officials consider virtual canoe ride, hearthside dinners in effort to keep museum’s attendance on upswing

The possibilities are intriguing: A tethered hot-air balloon ride. Old-time hearthside dinners prepared with farm-fresh ingredients. A wilderness-skill challenge that includes rock climbing and a virtual canoe ride. Leaders at Conner Prairie are weighing which-if any-of those ideas would be a good fit at the Hamilton County living history museum, which is focusing on its future even as it works to preserve the past. “The board is very committed to the idea that Conner Prairie must remain relevant and exciting…

Admitted ‘geek’ builds product-development prowess at Priio

By Larry O’Cull’s own admission, his company’s northwest-side office is staffed with “a bunch of geeks,” including himself. But as clients of product-development firm Priio will attest, it’s hip to be geek. A tour of the office offers a glimpse at a playground for engineering-inclined grown-ups. One of the firm’s 12 employees fiddles with the trigger on a paintball gun, while another tinkers with a concept for a propane-tank vending…

BULLS & BEARS: Sectors of stock market swing in and out of favor

I hated chemistry class in high school. Beakers and Bunsen burners were fun, but memorizing the periodic table of elements was torture for my ADD brain. All those little boxes with different colors stacked up in rows with the twoletter symbols and numbers of protons and neutrons boggled my mind. Today, though, a periodic table provides valuable instruction in my business. I am not talking about the periodic table with hydrogen, einsteinium and nobelium on it. The table valuable to…

Embarking on a new Venture: New leader planning progressive changes at center, not a total revamping

The new leader of the Indiana Venture Center is beginning to put his stamp on the not-for-profit that mentors promising startups. James Eifert, 64, is the former president of Terre Haute-based Rose-Hulman Ventures who took charge of the center in December following the July resignation of Steve Beck. Beck left to become co-managing director of IVC Equity Partners, a new local seed-capital fund. Chief items on Eifert’s to-do list are broadening the donor base, revamping the Venture Center’s proprietary network…

SPORTS: The Attucks story finally finds a national audience

Inspiration is timeless. In that regard, it doesn’t matter that two years after its initial release and 52 years after the fact, the story of the Crispus Attucks Tigers and their amazing coach, Ray Crowe, is finally being shared with the nation. On April 27, “Something To Cheer About,” the documentary that chronicles the triumphs and travails of the Attucks teams of the 1950s, opened in nine markets: New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Detroit; Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; Minneapolis; Dallas; and,…

LEGAL: Don’t be trapped by ‘talent’-redefine it instead

To succeed at the highest level, businesses must redefine talent. Our wellmeaning quests for the best and brightest talent frequently lead us into painful traps. The Indiana Pacers have proven this point in dramatic fashion in recent years. Take the Ron Artest saga. Artest is an immensely talented athlete and clearly one of the top players in the NBA, but had highly publicized problems. No doubt his talent brought him many more chances than the 11th player on the roster…

Comcast poised to debut business phone service: Cable giant, already a player in residential market, plans to use low prices to win customers from AT&T

The turf war between what used to be clearly defined as phone and cable companies will heat up this summer, when Comcast Corp. plans to launch phone service to businesses in the metro area. Philadelphia-based Comcast already offers residential phone service and highspeed Internet to most of its Indiana customers. Those have long been the bread and butter of phone giants such as AT&T. In the tit-for-tat nature of the blurring product offerings between cable and phone, AT&T late last…

Emmis structure is good for city: CEO’s clout helps avert buyout

It’s easy to understand why investors are grumbling about Emmis Communications Corp. CEO Jeff Smulyan. The company’s stock has tumbled in recent years, and some of the ways Smulyan has been choosing to use the company’s capital look misguided. Last year, for instance, Wall Street booed when Emmis helped back Smulyan’s ultimately unsuccessful bid to buy the Washington Nationals baseball team. And, with the benefit of hindsight, the company in 2005 woefully overpaid when it spent $395 million to buy…

Cummins shares explode after earnings report

Stock in Cummins Inc. shot up as much as 24.7 percent this morning following a positive first-quarter earnings report. At noon, the shares had settled retreated from a peak of $107 to near $100—still a huge run-up compared to yesterday’s closing price of $85.99.. The Columbus, Ind., diesel engine maker said profit rose 5.9 percent, […]