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INVESTING: Private-equity deal-making driving up stock prices

The private equity folks are having a field day. In 2006, there was $160 billion worth of publicly traded companies taken private by private equity firms. In the last six months, several of these private equity firms have raised more than that from investors. Leveraging that money will create enough buying power to take almost every company in Japan private. But there is a competitor for those deals waiting in the wings, and these two Wall Street forces are going…

St. Vincent taking over Thomson HQ

A shrunken Thomson, the former manufacturer of RCA
televisions, is vacating a landmark office building at its Carmel headquarters to make way for St. Vincent Health, the parent
company of a growing chain of Indiana hospitals.

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Does growth in health care drive our state’s economy?

Indiana households, businesses and governments spent more than $33 billion on health care products and services in 2004. We don’t have current data yet, but you can be sure the amount is higher today. That’s because growth in health care expenditures in the state has averaged a whopping 8.6 percent per year since 1980. In 2004, spending on hospital care, physician services, prescription drugs, nursing homes, and every other kind of health care product or service gobbled up 14.4 percent…

EYE ON THE PIE: Bullying behavior beyond the playground

Bully: “a blustering browbeating person; especially: one habitually cruel to others who are weaker” (Merriam-Webster’s On-line Dictionary). I don’t want to overstate the case, but much of the news lately has been about bullies. Without any psychological qualifications, I see bullies as those who view themselves as weak persons or victims of abuse. They then use intimidation or violence to compensate for the injustice and indignity they perceive being imposed on them. The Virginia Tech massacre appears to have been…

Winning bidder plans mixed-use project: Plan for state-owned parcel would add new neighbors for Bourbon Street Distillery, Musicians’ Repair & Sales

The winning bidder for a prime piece of state-owned land on the west side of downtown hopes to break ground later this year on a residential and retail complex. The project would replace a shabby parking lot on a triangle-shaped block that is now anchored by The Bourbon Street Distillery and Musicians’ Repair & Sales. The U-shaped, 0.75-acre property at 340 N. Capitol Ave. touches Indiana Avenue, Capitol Avenue and Vermont Street. The development likely would include condos above a…

Hospital charity cases growing as ranks of uninsured swell

In the last three years, Indianapolis hospitals have seen a substantial run-up in the amount of charity care they give to patients who can’t pay. The cost of care is rising, more people are uninsured, and government officials are scrutinizing not-for-profit hospitals to make sure they give enough charity care to merit their tax-exempt status.

Growing medical technology bags major VC investment: Bloomington-based ProCure hopes to build national network of proton-therapy clinics after luring $35 million

If you’re as smart as a fifth grader, you know that a proton is a basic particle in an atom’s nucleus that has a positive electrical charge. What might be less well known is that proton therapy is becoming the preferred treatment for certain types of tumors. But here’s the real stumper: The man leading a mission to build and operate a nationwide network of proton-therapy clinics is a Bloomington researcher whose startup received a $35 million cash infusion in…

FAMILY BUSINESS: Warning: Inevitable conflicts ahead for siblings

If you have at least one child working with you in the family business, it is virtually inevitable that conflicts among your children will arise at your incapacity or death. You may have a “business child” and a “non-business child.” So long as you are alive and well, you can resolve any conflicts between them. But what happens when you become incapacitated or die? Sibling rivalry can not only destroy what you have worked so hard to build, but it…

NOTIONS: This silo story could be about your business

Bruce Hetrick is on vacation this week. In his absence, this column, which appeared on March 4, 2002, is being reprinted. Once upon a time, there was a manager who worked in a big place. This manager directed a few dozen employees in a subsection of a department within a division beneath the left armpit of an organization. The manager admired the organization’s role in the world, but grew weary of fighting the other subsections of departments within divisions beneath…

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: The family possessed by a Devil

Devil worship has overtaken my family. No, we don’t have clandestine meetings where we drink animal blood or anything like that. We find ourselves engrossed in the world of the National Hockey League and eagerly following the New Jersey Devils, specifically a rookie defenseman by the name of Andy Greene. This particular Devil was a hockey star at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, the school my daughter Rachel attended. The two became entwined in a romantic relationship that continues today….

New strategies help some salons survive: Traditionalists say booth rental will remain the norm

Americans spend billions every year on professional primping and pampering, but independent salons still are among the riskiest of small-business ventures-with a failure rate second only to restaurants. Hoping to buck that trend, some salon owners are trying different business models, breaking away from traditional booth-space rentals and engaging stylists as employees with a stake in the shop’s success. Large chains like Great Clips broke the mold decades ago, paying employees an hourly wage to cut patrons’ hair. Now local…

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.