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BULLS & BEARS: Private equity boom to spur purchases of big companies

Investors can expect to see some large transactions involving big companies going private soon. While the $25 billion leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco accomplished by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in 1989 still ranks as the largest LBO in history, that could soon change. Today, several multibillion-dollar private equity funds are actively competing for deals. Groups such as Warburg Pincus, Carlyle Group, Blackstone Group and Apollo Management each have raised funds of $8 billion to $10 billion. In addition, several…

SPORTS Bill Benner: Still haunted by the video clip that won’t go away

It was a year ago on a mid-November Friday night when we had settled into our easy chairs, watching on television as the Indiana Pacers were wrapping up an impressive and statementsending early-season victory over the Detroit Pistons in Auburn Hills, Mich. Then, of course, all hell broke loose and the franchise we had grown up with-indeed, all of the NBA-took a hit harder than any administered in the stands. In today’s mega-media world, few events in sports history have…

Indy’s Wright of passage?: Conrad’s renowned chef could beef up city’s culinary reputation

“It gives [Indianapolis] a big-league chef,” said John Mariani, food and travel correspondent for Esquire magazine, when asked about Wright’s arrival. “It’s about time a city like Indianapolis has a restaurant of this caliber.” Wright left the kitchen at the Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He and his wife, Delia, an executive with a restaurantproducts distributor, chose Indianapolis partly because she has business contacts here. Jonathan is accustomed to pleasing an eclectic range of diners. He…

Standard Life sale leads to lawsuit over price: Kentucky buyer claims $652,000 refund is owed

Standard Management Corp. last week disclosed a new round of financial challenges and was hit with a lawsuit by a Kentucky company that bought its Standard Life Insurance subsidiary earlier this year. Louisville-based Capital Assurance Corp. accuses Standard Management of breaching terms of the contract to sell Standard Life and seeks a $652,126 refund, according to the lawsuit filed Nov. 14 in federal court in Indianapolis. Standard claims it owes only $43,000 in what it deems a “purchase-price adjustment dispute,”…

Lawrence, Crane build on base realignment: Economic developers hope to increase job count

Now that Indiana has survived the latest round of military base closings relatively unscathed, state leaders are turning to their next task: spurring economic development around the state’s two largest remaining military assets. After two years of review, the military’s Base Realignment and Closure process concluded Nov. 9 when Congress allowed the BRAC commission’s recommendations to become law. When the commission unveiled its recommendations this spring, state officials were relieved the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center in southwest Indiana would…

At Purdue, student feedback is click away: Professors use radio response devices in class to see if they are getting through

It’s a rare college student who will raise a hand in the classroom and say to the instructor, “Could you please repeat that? I don’t understand.” More common are groups of students who, when asked if they understand material just covered, sit and stare back, neither nodding nor shaking their heads. Faculty members tend to take no response as an affirmative, pass out tests, then find out who actually understood the material only after scoring the tests. And with some…

EYE ON THE PIE: Should we save ailing manufacturers?

Today, Delphi in Kokomo is the leading economic issue in Indiana. The resolution of its difficulties may foreshadow where we go as a state. Delphi is a major manufacturer of electronics for automobiles. As a former component of General Motors Corp., Delphi still depends on that struggling company for a large portion of its revenue. In addition, Delphi has pension and health care costs inherited from GM’s relationship with the United Auto Workers. Despite the fact that Delphi has been…

Incentives no help if hard to use, developers say: Program used on northwest side can be too much of a good thing

A year and a half ago, Indianapolis officials announced an incentive program designed to lure businesses to the vacancy-plagued commercial area surrounding Lafayette Square Mall on the northwest side. To date, just one developer has taken advantage of the community revitalization and enhancement district, or CRED, and its project was in the works before the program began. The developer built a movie theater and grocery store in a former Cub Foods near 38th Street and Lafayette Road. Smaller developers may…

‘Backward’ thinking seen as key to future: Students hope experiential history puts them on promising career path

As counterintuitive as it sounds, “experiential history” is one of seven key careers, besides usual suspects like logistics and bioinformatics, that are the focus of the University of Indianapolis’ Institute for Emerging Careers. No, drug testing of college faculty isn’t among the emerging careers. The institute was formed last year with a $750,000 Lilly Endowment grant. It aims to stem the so-called “brain drain” of Indiana’s college graduates to other states in search of work-in part by pointing them in…

Mixed bag for tech parks: Facing heavy competition for tenants, some developments thrive while others struggle

The stretch of land along Interstate 74 near Shelbyville lies mostly vacant, save for a couple of buildings and a network of roads and other infrastructure snaking through the property. This barren look is not what Intelliplex Park organizers had in mind more than two years ago, when their project became one of the first to receive the state’s certified technology park designation. “This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be,” said Tony Lennen, CEO…

ITT Educational Services rebounds from federal probe: With stock at 52-week high, company plans growth

After rebounding from a federal criminal probe that uncovered no wrongdoing, ITT Educational Services Inc. is proceeding with an ambitious growth plan in hopes of building upon a bullish earnings run. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston, which led the investigation into whether the Carmel-based private provider of postsecondary degree programs had falsified student records, acknowledged in June that it did not turn up evidence justifying the charges. “It was very, very disruptive and very distracting to the organization,” ITT…

Higher stadium price looms: Hurricanes likely to blow up costs for construction projects

The Gulf Coast hurricanes may push construction costs sharply higher for several years, experts say, potentially adding millions of dollars in costs to the $625 million football stadium as well as other public projects in their early stages. “Even a 1-percent cost increase on a project like [the stadium] is significant, and the effects from these hurricanes is likely to be higher than that,” said Patrick Barkey, an economist and director of economic and policy studies at the Miller College…

NOTIONS: It’s crazy, but I’m still thankful after all these tears

It’s a Saturday night in late October. I am at ease, in the arms of a woman, among 700 swaying souls. We’re at a place called the Music Mill. We arrived a few hours ago with six friends, only two of whom I knew just seven months before. (You must forgive me, for I still measure time from March 5, the day my wife, Pam, died and my world shattered and started anew.) Amos Lee, a young singer-songwriter, is at…

TAWN PARENT Commentary: Go beyond the turkey on Thanksgiving

Too much enthusiasm can do you in. Three years ago, my family volunteered to deliver Thanksgiving dinner for Meals on Wheels. In a moment of excessive gusto, I decided we should throw ourselves into the holiday spirit for the occasion. We spent days practicing “Over the River and Through the Woods,” with which we planned to enchant recipients at each stop. On the big day, I stuffed my 2-year-old into a fringed Indian costume, against his will. My husband, reluctantly,…

Questions fly over trading in Guidant stock: SEC among regulators scrutinizing share sales

A Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a fresh batch of lawsuits are prompting more questions about whether anyone used inside information to unload Guidant Corp. shares before the company’s stock began to slide. The Indianapolis-based medical-device maker, which is riding a wave of bad news dating to last spring, disclosed Nov. 7 that the SEC launched “a formal inquiry” into certain product disclosures and stock trading. That means the commission has questions about insider trading, and it’s armed with…

Grant Communications Inc.: Cellular merger brings growth to local retailer Business expansion beats owner’s initial expectations

Cellular phones may be ubiquitous today, but they weren’t in 1987 when Elkhart-born Adam Grant spotted an Atlanta neighbor talking into a two-way radio that doubled as a phone. The communications device was introduced by Nextel, which rolled out a mobile phone that same year. Intrigued by the innovation, Grant began a journey taking him from Atlanta to Houston and back to his home state. He opened his first central Indiana mobile-phone store in April 1998, and now Grant Communications…

Incentive search shot down: University Loft eyes Tennessee after Hancock County spurns request to create a TIF district

Hancock County Commissioners’ unwillingness to consider creating a Tax Increment Financing district has sent a growing Indianapolis-based manufacturer looking for a new expansion site, possibly out of state. University Loft Co. CEO James N. Jannetides said he was continually rebuffed over a months-long process to get the tax incentives his company needed to bring 200-plus jobs to the county directly east of Marion County. Now Jannetides said he might look to consolidate manufacturing in Tennessee where he opened a plant…

MASTER OF THE PLAN: Ultra-prepared president has Purdue primed for ‘pre-eminence’

It’s half-past eight on a Monday morning and Martin Jischke is at his desk, poring over notes. This is how Purdue University’s president spends his days and most of his nights-preparing to be prepared. At any time, Jischke could be interacting with students, alumni, faculty, legislators or business leaders. He wants to be ready for their questions with clear, articulate answers, no matter the subject. His responses seem off-thecuff, but make no mistake: Jischke has studied and considered his position…

What’s up with kids (us) today? CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary:

News flash: Many kids today show little respect for or fear of authority, or anything else for that matter. Did you catch Ruth Holladay’s Nov. 8 column in The Indianapolis Star about the vandalized deer sculpture on the DePauw University campus? A life-size sculpture of an eightpoint buck was created by New York artist Marc Swanson and donated to the school by the Butler Family Foundation at a cost of five figures. It was a beautiful piece of public art,…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Hilbert’s next act: Jumping into private equity game

Stephen Hilbert suffered another legal defeat last week. But don’t bet the founder and ex-CEO of Conseco Inc. is sitting around feeling sorry for himself. In fact, this fall Hilbert, 59, is quietly launching a major new business, one that will get him back into the acquisition game, a field he savored during his two decades atop Conseco. Details are sketchy, because Hilbert isn’t talking. But here’s what a little snooping turned up: Attorneys in July filed papers with the…