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BULLS & BEARS: Some companies lose way when they reinvest profits

In a previous column, I described “free cash flow” as the earnings remaining after a company makes the necessary expenditures to keep the business viable in its industry. Executives at companies that generate unrestricted earnings, or free cash flow, have critical decisions to make on how to allocate those funds. One choice is to pay out dividends to shareholders. Decades ago, dividends composed a significant portion of the overall return achieved by investing in common stocks. Following the post-WWII economic…

NOTIONS: Sex makes us more squeamish than violence

Two decades ago, while creating an A I D S – p r eve n t i o n campaign for Connecticut’s state health department, I became a “sexpert.” No, I didn’t become an expert on sex itself (at least no more than your average married fellow). Nor did I conduct formal sex research (I leave that to the Kinsey Institute). Instead, I became an expert on how we Americans, Puritan descendents that many of us are, resist communicating about…

EYE ON THE PIE: Your call is important to someone

I’m on hold after calling Wishard Hospital’s Adult Medicine Clinic at 7 a.m., as instructed, to get an appointment with my doctor. My call is very important, the recorded message says, but no one is responding. First, I am told that if this call concerns a “life-threatening situation,” I should hang up and call 9-1-1. That’s really helpful. Maybe other, more sophisticated patients can identify a “life-threatening situation.” I am always reluctant to make such a determination. Then I go…

Solheim fills LPGA marketing cup: Sold-out international event at Crooked Stick set to be anchor of new advertising campaign

With unprecedented growth in Solheim Cup ticket and sponsorship sales, the LPGA is preparing to use the September event at Crooked Stick Golf Club as a cornerstone for its new, racier marketing campaign. The LPGA, working with the Indiana Sports Corp., quickly sold out the event earlier this year and expects more than 150,000 people to come through the turnstiles for the three days of practice and three days of competition for the international women’s golf event. “We had so…

Smaller-sized meetings bring in big bucks for city: Hospitality group sees value in events of all scales

Even event planners hire event planners. When Cynthia Howell needed to plan an event in the city for a state health care organization, she called Betsy Ward, a member of the meetings team at the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association. With what Howell calls minimal effort on her part, the Indiana Primary Health Care Association Inc. will stay in 50 rooms for two nights at the Sheraton Indianapolis Hotel and Suites at Keystone at the Crossing this fall. The group…

Manufacturers struggle with China’s risk, opportunity: Currency valuation one of many competitive issues

Eighteen months ago, 110 people worked for Swiss Plywood Co., a Tell City-based cabinet-maker in business since 1945. The average tenure was 17 years. Today, only 65 employees are left at the controls of Swiss Plywood’s machines. Chairman Bill Borders blames China. “We’ve weathered storms over the years,” Borders said. “But nothing approaching this.” Manufacturers in Indiana and across the nation have long complained about what they call Chinese currency manipulation. It’s one of a litany of grumbles about Chinese…

University Place getting major makeover: New owner IUPUI investing $13M in renovation of 18-year-old hotel

A hotel built during an era in which Indianapolis first laid claim to its title of Amateur Sports Capital of the World has a new owner that is spending millions of dollars to bring the structure into the new century. University Place Conference Center & Hotel, on the campus of IUPUI, opened amid the fanfare of the Pan American Games hosted by Indianapolis in 1987. Nearly 4,500 athletes from 38 countries converged on downtown, including a throng of media that…

Bias claimed at Citizens Gas: Black workers: Test limited advancement

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility is battling allegations that a test used to screen employees and outside job applicants was biased against blacks, hindering their chances of getting hired or advancing. The city-owned utility last year reached a confidential settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of applicants who weren’t hired because the test “has an adverse impact on black employees and applicants for promotion, transfers and hire,” according to EEOC documents. Now, that settlement-which included cash payouts…

How well does your firm communicate with clients? MARKETING Kay Millar: Businesses that serve customers effectively offer a welcome reminder of how things ought to be handled

How well does your firm communicate with clients? MARKETING Kay Millar Businesses that serve customers effectively offer a welcome reminder of how things ought to be handled Having spent four months with my husband preparing one house to sell and another to move into, I’m sharing our observations on the behaviors of small businesses – using as examples our contractor, carpenter, electrician, painter, roofer and mason. Hopefully, this will help managers of other businesses review their own practices. Communication with…

Accounting employees in demand: Sarbanes-Oxley requirements spark hiring surge of experienced accountants, creating openings at smaller firms

Little did Josh Malarsky know five years ago when he began pursuing his master’s degree in accounting that firms would be hiring in such unprecedented numbers. But that was before federal legislation tightening auditing and accounting rules and regulations turned the profession on its head. Known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the law and its stiffer controls have caused accounting firms and corporations to ratchet up staffing numbers. The Big Four firms that audit public companies mostly are searching for seniorlevel…

VIEWPOINT: Arts education is not disposable

Our forefathers had it right. In planning for the eight symbols of Indiana’s values that grace the high arches of the rotunda in the state capitol, art ranks right up there with commerce, justice, liberty, history, agriculture, oratory and law. Each of these is depicted in 20-foot statues that hold a color palette, a book or a shock of wheat that reveals in iconic form the tools of that particular area. Interesting to note that, without art, none of the…

SPORTS: A history lesson for 21st century stadium critics

It is Oct. 20, 1971. I am standing near Market and Alabama streets, where the groundbreaking has taken place for a venue to be called Market Square Arena. The price tag is a salty $23 million, and the project has attracted critics and naysayers who wonder about the city’s priorities, especially since our mayor, Richard Lugar, is using federal revenuesharing funds to help pay for the arena. Plus, Lugar has this wacky idea about using the arena as a catalyst…

Ex-IPL officer fights utility: Claims wrongful termination, financial trickery

Not even a lineman at Indianapolis Power & Light Co. has more nerve than Dwane Ingalls. Floored that IPL’s CEO, Ann Murtlow, didn’t share his concerns that IPL was sending excessive cash to parent AES Corp. at the expense of electric-service reliability, the IPL vice president scheduled a meeting in mid-2003 at the Maryland home of AES CEO Paul Hanrahan. Hanrahan apparently didn’t see things Ingalls’ way. Within a year of the meeting, Murtlow terminated the 14-year AES employee. Now,…

Cook County jail contract gives local firm big boost: Government Payment Service could double business

Government Payment Service Inc.’s credit-card-based jail bond service has proven to be a successful alternative to traditional cash transactions. Now the Indianapolis-based company, which has experienced tremendous growth since its founding in 1997, could double in size, having secured a contract with the country’s largest jail system in Cook County, Ill., home to Chicago. Cook County, with 5.3 million people, is the second-most populous county in the nation, topped only by Los Angeles County in California. Processing credit card bail…

Tax credits aid blighted areas: Help open to firms targeting Center Township projects

Federal tax credits supporting roughly $6 million in economic development projects are still available for small-business owners considering expanding or locating in Center Township. The funds are administered through the New Markets Tax Credit Program, which was established by Congress in 2000 to help revitalize blighted areas. In Indiana, the locally based Urban Enterprise Association Inc. helped secure tax credits that can fund $50 million worth of projects, including $12.5 million in Marion County. The tax credits already are supporting…

Forum tops local list of largest credit unions: $25M headquarters expansion caps decade of growth

This year, for the first time, Forum has passed Indiana Members Credit Union on IBJ’s annual list of the largest Indianapolis-area credit unions (see page 28). What’s more, with $913 million in assets, 84,159 members and 11 branches, Forum has a market foothold on par with some well-known local banks, such as the National Bank of Indianapolis and Plainfield-based Lincoln Bank. On Aug. 9, Forum will formally dedicate the latest symbol of its financial services firepower, a $25 million expansion…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Manufacturing sector keeps Indiana economy chugging

There is mostly good news on the economy. Both in Indiana and in the nation as a whole, we appear to be heading into the year’s second half with reasonably strong momentum. Buoyed by surprisingly low interest rates, a weak dollar and a strong rebound in business spending nationwide, the state economy has turned in a solid performance in the last six quarters. Through the first six months of the year, the Indiana economy is on a pace to create…

Making way for a MONSTER: Airport to dish out millions to accommodate Airbus A380

The 7,700 acres that are Indianapolis International Airport may soon look like the city squashed by Godzilla-when big, bad A380 comes to town. And it is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars to keep the beast happy. The A380 is the Airbus Industrie superjumbo jet. Airport managers want to start crunching-er, make that estimating-what it will cost to accommodate the world’s biggest airliner. They plan to ask the Indianapolis Airport Authority board for $200,000 from the 2006 airport…

EYE ON THE PIE: Brothers set example for today’s execs

Most of us know the fabled heroes of Bean Town. They include the Adams cousins (John and Sam). Paul Revere. The Kennedy brothers (John, Robert and Edward). Ted Williams, Carl Yazstremski, Bobby Orr, Bob Cousey, Bill Russell, Larry Bird and Tom Brady. Yet Boston’s most significant business heroes are not well-known today, at a time when their example could be most useful. Two brothers, Edward and Lincoln Filene, inherited their father’s department store in 1890. They spent the rest of…

Radio Disney catching the ears of youth-and advertisers: Event marketing key to getting local kids to tune in

Two years after its launch, Radio Disney’s local WRZD-FM 98.3 affiliate is outperforming many affiliates in the 55-station network, even though traditional measures of its success are anything but magical. WRZD’s rating by New York-based Arbitron Inc., the industry’s standard media research firm, shows the station barely cracking the top 20 in this market. But WRZD has prospered through another number: listener calls per day. The station averages an eye-popping 4,070 calls a day, according to officials at Radio Disney’s…