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A lot of investors are doing some deep thinking right now. People lost money in the first quarter. Now the second quarter is shaping up to be more of the same. For the most part, on a broad portfolio basis, many people are only now getting back to even with five years ago. But just as things start to pop above water, the losses begin to pile up again. The portfolio devastation most Americans suffered in the last bear market…
Within the next 10 years, the U.S. Department of Defense hopes to fully automate a third of its ground vehicles. Indianapolis-based high-tech entrepreneur Scott Jones has plans to one day sell the robot pilots the military needs to accomplish that mission. But before he can build a business capable of attracting serious venture capital, he has to build a robot that can drive a Jeep Rubicon across 175 miles of the Mojave Desert in less than 10 hours. And he…
Steve Alford and Stephanie White were the quintessential Indiana high school and college basketball stars. They were hardwood heroes who emerged from small towns and led their respective universities, Indiana and Purdue, to national championships. For many Hoosiers, the storybook ending would have been for that success to carry on to the professional level, with Alford and White leading the NBA Pacers and WNBA Fever to championships and street parades. Reality intruded. Alford, as we have been reminded recently, was…
Seven years ago, Conseco Inc. purchased $87.5 million in life insurance coverage for company founder Stephen Hilbert and his wife, a move that seemed to assure vast wealth would pass on to the Hilbert family after their deaths. But in a new ruling, Chicago bankruptcy Judge Carol Doyle said Conseco’s obligation to provide coverage terminated when the company filed for Chapter 11 protection in December 2002. As a result, she ruled, Hilbert family trusts, which had filed millions of dollars…
About halfway between Bill Cook’s hometown of Bloomington and French Lick lies the Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center. Thanks to billionaire Cook’s bet on the area’s historic hotels, it looks like French Lick’s riverboat is about to come in. But it also looks like Crane’s ship, and the nearly 4,000 jobs that go along with it, is about to sail, and no amount of money can keep it in a Hoosier port. Indiana crapped out a decade ago when the…
The Kinnett brothers formed Front Row Tickets Inc. 16 years ago, and together they built it into one of the city’s largest ticket brokerages. That success, how- fueled acrimony. Kyle ever, now has Kinnett, 35, has sued his 50-50 partner Scott, 36, and is asking a judge to appoint a receiver to oversee the business until it’s sold. “Serious differences have arisen between Kyle and Scott concerning the conduct and management of the business,” leaving them deadlocked, according to the…
Hetrick has the week off. In his absence, this column, an adaptation of one that appeared on April 14, 2003, is being reprinted. The first line of the first song in the musical comedy “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” is “How to Apply for a Job.” That’s also the name of the course I’m proposing to any university that will buy it. I offer this proposal to my friends in academe because many of the candidates they’re…
One solution for a city bus system struggling to lure riders might be academic-get college students on board. The Indianapolis Public Transportation Corp. is in talks with colleges and vocational schools about the potential of discounted fares for students who opt to take the bus to and from campus. The push also has a longer-term goal of conditioning students to use public transportation after they graduate to the work world. Financially sputtering IndyGo, which finished 2004 in the black only…
If money can’t buy love, as the Beatles sang 40 years ago, neither can it make a startup company prosperous. While David Becker and David Doyle are no John Lennon or Paul McCartney, their wisdom certainly makes sense for locally based Inception LLC. That’s the consultancy, incubator and venture capital firm they founded in November 2000. “Entrepreneurs always think that, if they had money, they would be successful [right away],” Doyle said. “That’s not always the case. There are very…
Two retailers in the early stages of national expansion efforts are eyeing Simon Property Group Inc.’s Circle Centre and Fashion Mall for new stores. Clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz plans to open an 18,000-square-foot store in Circle Centre this fall, and local retail experts say Williams-Sonoma Inc. is considering the Fashion Mall for one of its first Williams-Sonoma Home stores. Better known as H&M, Hennes & Mauritz is to clothing what IKEA is to furniture: hip, Swedish and budget-friendly. Since…
In the 1958 Disney documentary “White Wilderness,” the viewer saw what looked like hundreds of lemmings following one another over a cliff and falling to their deaths. Ever since their big-screen debut, lemmings have had the unfortunate reputation of being stupid, blind followers of one another regardless of the consequences. What the audience didn’t see were cameramen herding the poor little rodents over the cliff with a piece of plywood. You see, lemmings don’t commit suicide. About the only creature…
Company specializes in finding people who haven’t paid their credit card bills As long as Americans have a champagne thirst for the good life but a beer budget to pay for it, there will be debt. And as long as there is debt, there will be those who fail to pay. That’s where companies such as New Horizon Credit Inc. come in. Founded in 2003 by brothers William and Fred Goodnight, New Horizon specializes in collecting older debt-debt that’s been…
Our dear friends in the Indiana General Assembly continue to support the idea that tourism should be a state-subsidized industry. It is bad enough that we subsidize biotechnology and the Indianapolis Colts, even though we would object if any of the Colts used some of that good biotech to enhance performance. The first problem with tourism is that it creates very few well-paid jobs. Most jobs in tourism make our workers servants to other people who leave their towels on…
I’ve discovered something really unexpected on my desk lately: a surface. After years of having monitors the size of packing crates looming over my desk, I now have two flatpanel monitors that actually take up less surface space together than one of the old CRT (cathode ray tube) monitors. The new LCD (liquid crystal display) flat panels are sleek, black, digital and much brighter than the old putty-colored CRTs that now seem so dreadfully old-fashioned. A flat-panel 19-inch monitor can…
Indiana University officials say they’re shopping for a site near the airport or in Plainfield for a laboratory to help grow the state’s transportation-distribution-logistics industry-known as TDL. The IU Supply Chain Control Center would evaluate for companies the feasibility and cost benefits of new technologies that could be used to improve sourcing, production and product distribution. The service would be provided at no or little cost. But the center faces a logistics challenge of its own-a delivery of cash. IU…
Spring has exploded in my urban garden. The climbing hydrangeas race up the trellises. The perennials ascend toward azure blue. And the flowering crab has erupted like a Fourth of July firework. It was a hard winter for us. Last fall, two shrubs by the stone bench turned brown and we couldn’t save them. In December, the blue spruce by the back gate shed its needles and died. And my fellow gardener, who planted this place and nurtured it with…
Citigroup reported another great quarter last week and, once again, not much is happening with the stock. It is starting to get a little routine. The story inside the company seems to get a little brighter every few months, but the stock has been trading sideways for two years. It is getting a little more popular these days to turn away from financial stocks because of rising interest rates. (Although the only rates that are moving higher are those controlled…
No charter school is an island-at least not from Kevin Teasley’s perspective. In fact, the independence at the very core of the charter movement creates demand for the kind of assistance his Charter School Service Center offers. “The fact that we have our own charter school makes us more helpful to others,” said Teasley, CEO of Indianapolis-based Greater Educational Opportunities Foundation. “We know what they need. Or at least we think we do.” GEO Foundation, which operates 21st Century Charter…
Toilet training can be one of the most trying times of childhood for toddlers, and child-rearing for parents. But one local plumber’s concept could make the chore easier, if mom and dad are willing to make the investment. David Heffner, who has operated Heffner & Associates LLC from his west-side home since 2001, has developed the Child Friendly Bathroom. He’s had the name trademarked and is beginning to market the high-tech features to customers with kids. Inspired by his 7-…
IBJ: Is your sector of the construction or real estate industry better or worse off than a year ago and why? BURK: Overall, I think the Indianapolis office market is better off than it was a year ago. The occupancy rate for the 29-million-plus square feet of multitenant office properties in the market increased by about 2 percent last year, to 82.5 percent. There was positive net absorption of about 600,000 square feet, most of which occurred in the suburbs….
