Announcements that major Indiana companies have been acquired are traditionally met with trepidation. But a rash of recent
buyouts of Indiana companies shows they’re not always bad news.
After the Indianapolis Colts beat the New England Patriots to win a trip to Super Bowl XLI, my fiancée and I jumped up and down in the living room and pumped our fists in the air. The cat, who was scared out of his wits, escaped up the stairs. After a celebratory phone call from my son Zach in Fort Wayne, we threw on our coats and jogged the six blocks from our downtown home to the RCA Dome, where…
A little-known refining and petroleum products company on the city’s west side has the distinction of being the only company in the state to go public in 2006. Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP filed its initial public offering last January. It completed the process in June by selling 5.7 million shares of stock at $21.50 each, ultimately raising $122.5 million. Shares since have nearly doubled in value, thanks in part to rising prices in the petroleum industry. While Calumet’s decision…
Esco Communications Inc., which is installing the sound system in Lucas Oil Stadium, is showing its blue-blood support of the Indianapolis Colts in more ways than sponsoring a Blue Friday this Friday. The Indianapolis company is offering its 140 workers a paid day off after the Sunday’s game.
If the Colts beat the Bears in Sunday’s Super Bowl, Indianapolis will have battered Chicago in more ways than one, according to an analysis from the Indiana University Business Research Center. While most sports fans around the country are fixated on whether Rex Grossman can outplay Peyton Manning, the intellectuals at IU are more concerned […]
Polian’s long and winding road Architect of Colts’ success worked his way to the top Bill Polian never took the straight line to anything or anywhere. He never had that luxury. The multi-sport schoolboy athlete from the Bronx never had the advantage of an inside track. So he broke in to the National Football League […]
TO DO LIST BUTLER BASKETBALL All together now: ‘Let’s go Bulldogs, let’s go!’ Looking for a way to satisfy your sports jones now that football season’s over? Check out Indianapolis’ other team-the Butler Bulldogs-at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse. The nationally ranked basketball squad is at its prime, and taking in a home game is an entertaining reminder of the good old days when college athletes played their hearts out for four years and communities came out in force to rally ’round…
A developer wanting to breathe new life into a long-vacant drive-in theater along Pendleton Pike is working to change the minds of Lawrence leaders who already have said no thanks. New York-based Norry Management Corp. is leading an effort to redevelop the 93-acre property for retail, office and industrial uses. But its plans faced a setback last month when a rezoning petition got a negative response from officials concerned about what might end up there. Lawrence City Council members voted…
Where is the best place to work if all you consider is money? Where are the wages and salaries plus benefits paid by employers the highest? We have data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis that help us answer the question. The data refer to 2005, the latest year available, and do not include self-employment; thus, only jobs working for someone else are counted. And remember, these data are by place of work, not place of residence. Where are…
But as more people seek out healthier food and become conscious of high fat and calorie counts in Steak n Shake’s staples,
some are staying away or not visiting as often. To fight back, the chain is working on a barrage of healthier menu options,
including yogurt shakes, chicken sandwiches and new salads. Perhaps a variation on the slogan that started it all in Normal,
Ill., in 1934 is in order: “In Sight It Must Be Light.” The first leaner…
The ethanol gold rush sweeping Indiana and other states that grow its prime ingredient, corn, is threatening profit margins for livestock producers and portends higher prices at the supermarket. Perhaps no sector is more nervous these days than pork, where Indiana ranks fifth in production nationally. “Much higher feed costs are likely to eliminate the profit potential for pork production in 2007,” Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agriculture economics professor, said in his recent market outlook report. Corn, the primary…
Leaders of the 20-year-old Arts Council of Indianapolis want to broaden the organization’s approach to arts advocacy. They
say they’d like to act as a cultural broker of sorts, making sure local artists are connected with possible patrons.
Bill Polian, the multi-sport schoolboy athlete from the Bronx, never had the advantage of an inside track. So he broke into
the National Football League the only way he knew how: by outworking and outsmarting the competition. By all accounts, Polian,
64 and now president of the Indianapolis Colts, is still at it.
Kite Realty Group Trust said today it will develop 26 acres owned by the University of Notre Dame. The mixed-use, 500,000-square-foot project south of the football stadium will include retail, hotel, office and condominiums, townhouses and apartments, the Indianapolis real estate investment trust said. The university is considering a technology park, single–family homes and more […]
Let’s see now … The city of Indianapolis announces it is formally pursuing the 2011 Super Bowl. Indiana University defeats second-ranked University of Wisconsin in Assembly Hall, ending the Badgers’ chances of becoming the first team since IU in 1976 to go through the league unbeaten. North Central High School’s Eric Gordon goes for 43 points in a nationally televised game against a Chicago high school team featuring the two sons of Michael Jordan, who watches from the bleachers. Butler…
The Time Factory founder and CEO Jim Purcell wants to erect a 150-foot-tall wind turbine above his calendar factory near 62nd
Street and Georgetown Road. Purcell figures the $200,000 contraption could power 60 percent–if he’s lucky, maybe 80 percent–of
his 22,000-square-foot facility.
It’s a long shot-probably longer than the odds the Chicago Bears faced against the Indianapolis Colts-but the city could host the Super Bowl in 2011 and the Republican National Convention the following year. City leaders hope to convince NFL owners that the city is more deserving than Phoenix, Dallas and possibly New Orleans, which could be the sentimental favorite if, in fact, it submits a bid. Indiana Republicans, meanwhile, are setting their sights on 2012 and are just beginning to…
After decades of Affirmative Action, women occupy fewer than one-fourth of U.S. university presidents’ offices-this despite females making up 58 percent of undergraduates, according to the U.S. Education Department. Women made decent strides between 1986, when 10 percent of college presidents’ offices were occupied by women, and 2001, when 21 percent had women. However, between 2001 and 2006, the number barely changed. In the most recent survey by the Washington, D.C.-based American Council on Education, a public-policy advocacy group, preliminary…
Like lots of little baby boomers, I first encountered Valentine’s Day in elementary school. My parents would take me to the dime store or drug store. We’d buy 35 or 40 overly cute cards. Then, using a list provided by my teacher and under Mom’s careful supervision, I’d sign and hand-address one for each classmate. And woe to anyone who excluded even a single soul. We couldn’t, after all, have a little baby boomer feeling unloved. In seventh grade, I…
Outside of Marion County, this is probably unknown. Even inside the county, few are aware of Mayor Bart Peterson’s proposal to issue $450 million in bonds because of shortfalls in the money available for police and fire pensions. These are obligations to those who served before 1977. The issue seems too complex for most of us to get into. Also, it’s something going on in Marion County. Who cares? If it isn’t the Colts, does it matter? Despite these feelings,…
