British plumbing and heating supplier Wolseley Plc said today it will eliminate 2,000 jobs in the U.S. because the soft housing market has weakened profits. Its Stock Building Supplies arm, which is based in Raleigh, N.C., in the U.S., is laying off 1,500 jobs at 22 locations in addition to 2,000 positions it already has […]
Author Solutions Inc., the Bloomington parent of self-publisher AuthorHouse, has been sold to Bertram Capital of Palo Alto, Calif., for an undisclosed price. Author Solutions, which published one of every 30 U.S. book titles last year, was owned by Carmel-based Gazelle Tech Ventures. AuthorHouse CEO Bryan Smith said he expects Bertram to expand deeper into […]
When local IT entrepreneur Mark Hill sold his banking software company in August 2005, he emphasized the potential upside for the area entrepreneurial community. Now he’s making good on his word. Not content to bask on a beach somewhere, Hill has organized an Indianapolisbased private investment company called Collina Ventures. With $10 million under management-all provided by Hill-Collina already has made its first investment. This month, it risked $5 million in startup cash to organize Indianapolis-based Blue-Lock LLC, a computer-hosting…
Each month, leaders of some of the city’s most promising life sciences companies gather to share lunch, but they are more interested in getting an extra dollop of advice that might contain the ingredients for a thriving company. These 14 chief executives sharing their experiences with one another represent the city’s roster of life sciences firms that have received outside financing from venture capitalists. That means the fledgling enterprises are high-risk investments with the potential for above-average returns. And with…
Panattoni Development Co. LLC is considering building an industrial park near the Honda Motor Co. plant at Greensburg, according to the Daily News. The Sacramento, Calif.-based developer asked Greensburg officials this week to extend utilities to the 425-acre site in the hope of attracting warehouses and light manufacturing. To aid its entry into Greensburg, Panattoni […]
Vacancy rates for industrial and office real estate declined in 2006, according to real estate brokerage Colliers Turley Martin Tucker’s annual “The State of Real Estate” report. The findings include: Industrial -Industrial vacancy rates have been declining since reaching a recent peak of 9.1 percent in 2002, ending 2006 at 6.5 percent. -5.5 million square […]
Conseco Inc. has put up for sale 49 undeveloped acres in Carmel once owned by former CEO Stephen Hilbert and his wife, Tomisue. The property at the southwest corner of 116th Street and Spring Mill Road was snagged by the Carmel financial services company in a legal settlement with its co-founder. It does not […]
Kar Holdings II said today it plans to place its own senior managers at Adesa Inc., the Carmel-based car auction the private fund is buying for $3.7 billion. Chairman and CEO David Gartzke will be replaced by Brian Clingen. Clingen is an investor and board member of another auto auction Kar bought, Insurance Auto Auctions […]
Kar Holdings II said today it plans to place its own senior managers at Adesa Inc., the Carmel-based car auction the private fund bought in December for $3.7 billion. Chairman and CEO David Gartzke will be replaced by Brian Clingen. Clingen is an investor and board member of another auto auction Kar bought, Insurance Auto […]
The Columbia Club, the tradition-rich enclave where the city’s business elite have gathered and cut deals for more than a
century, is facing declining membership, the departure of its longtime general manager, and looming financial challenges–including
a $5.5 million loan that comes due this summer.
In today’s Internet age, companies are going well beyond reading résumés and contacting references to check out job candidates. More and more would-be employers are turning to the Web to conduct background checks on prospects. MySpace and Facebook are two hugely popular social networking sites where college and high school students often post risqué photographs and provocative content about drinking, recreational drug use, sexual exploits and other personal conduct. But what some job seekers might mistakenly consider relatively private information…
Bank mergers have proven lucrative for local sign companies over the years. A string of mergers in the late 1980s and early
1990s wiped out the city’s three big national banks–American Fletcher, Merchants National and Indiana National. In the years
since, the industry has continued to consolidate, spawning a flurry of additional name changes.
ChaCha, the Internet search engine co-founded by Carmel tech entrepreneur Scott Jones received commitments of $6 million in private financing last year from investors including Jeff Bezos, who started Amazon.com. Other investors in the Indianapolis start-up are Compaq Computer founding CEO Rod Canion and Jack Gill, who co-founded of the Palo Alto, Calif., venture capital […]
Indianapolis-area women are making their mark in the ownership and management of residential construction businesses, following decades of working behind the scenes. Women account for 47 percent of privately held firms in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That number is growing, and the greatest growth is in construction. The National Association of Home Builders Women’s Council reports that the number of women-owned businesses in the building industry has risen 30 percent since 1997. “One of…
Being an Indianapolis Colts fan doesn’t mean you will necessarily succeed at running a Colts-themed restaurant, but Blue Crew
Sports Grill owners Randy Collins, Dan Dilbeck and Everett Myers aren’t ordinary fans. They are three pillars on which one
of the National Football League’s biggest fan clubs has been built.
What a mixed bag 2006 was. For every yin, there was yang. Yin: The Indianapolis Colts claimed home-field advantage in the NFL playoffs. Yang: They then lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers when mouthy M i ke Va n d e r j a g t gagged on the gametyin kick. Yin: The city hosted a simply extraordinary Final Four at the RCA Dome and welcomed to town a genuine Cinderella, George Mason. Yang: The games were one-sided, and, speaking of…
The brutal murders of seven family members, including three children shot dead in their east-side Indianapolis home, cast a dark cloud over the city last summer. Yet the June slayings only served as a harbinger of a wave of violence that later claimed 15 lives in a 10-day span. The crime spree rattled city leaders so severely that Mayor Bart Peterson declared an emergency normally reserved for a natural disaster. 2006 no doubt ranked among the most deadly years in…
The year closed with two multibilliondollar buyouts of Indiana public companies-Carmel-based Adesa Inc. and Warsaw-based Biomet Inc. It was a fitting way to wrap up what was a record year for U.S. buyouts, many of them launched by deep-pocketed private equity firms. Adesa, an operator of auto auctions, announced Dec. 22 that it will be sold to a group of private-equity investors, including New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., for $3.7 billion. Four days earlier, Biomet, a maker of orthopedic…
A court-appointed trustee in charge of Winona Memorial Hospital’s bankruptcy says he believes former owners fleeced it for
more than $4 million. But he has little to show from his two-year quest to recover money for creditors and now is winding
down the case.
The employees of production-innovation consultant Insight2 interview customers, but they also watch and videotape them using
various products. That footage then is dissected to see how consumers deal with problems they encounter. More times than not,
the result is a new product intended to satisfy needs consumers didn’t even know they had.
