|
|
|
NASDAQ Dumps Flexi
|
Business New Haven
7/12/1999
By: BNH
|
The Shelton-based FlexiInternational Software began trading on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin October 6 after having been dropped by the NASDAQ National Market for no longer meeting the minimum net tangible asset and minimum bid price criteria. FlexiInternational, which will continue trading under the symbol FLXI, makes financial and accounting software. Its officials have blamed Y2K problems for cancellations of orders while clients reprogram their computer systems. FlexiInternational shares closed at 50 cents following their first day of OTC trading, unchanged.
Now They Can Afford Those Extra-Absorbent Paper Towels
Yale University's endowment has topped the $7 billion mark, according to the Yale Investment Office, representing an all-time high. Although last year's return on investment - 12.2 percent - is nearly Yale's lowest in the last half-decade, the performance is above-average compared to other universities' returns. Over the past decade, Yale's annualized investment return has been about 15 percent. In absolute dollar terms, over the past year Yale's endowment earned $780 million. And in the past five years the size of the university's next egg has nearly doubled from its 1994 value of $3.6 billion. This year, the endowment supplies about 22 percent of Yale's operating budget.
Beacon Falls Park on Block
The 79-year-old owner of the Pinesbridge Industrial Park in Beacon Falls wants to cash out his investment and sell the 138-acre parcel to the town. Only problem is, after a decade of trying and a reported $12 million investment in the property, Monroe developer Chris Bargas has attracted just one business tenant: a state Department of Motor Vehicles emissions station. According to published reports, a handful of businesses have approached Bargas about purchasing one- or two-acre parcels in the park and erecting facilities in the 10,000-square-foot range. But Bargas has remained adamant in his desire to sell the property as a single entity. He has offered Pinesbridge to the town for $3.5 million, but town officials have balked, saying the financial burden of building a $38 million new high school has made resources scarce for now.
How the Other Half Lives
Top officials of Pfizer Inc. believe they can spur a ten-percent increase in productivity merely by smart design of the company's massive new drug-discovery complex in Groton. Contrary to the image of the solitary scientist in his basement, scientific innovation is actually very social and even "messy," as Pfizer research chief George M. Milne Jr. told the Wall Street Journal. That's why Pfizer's new Groton complex features parallel hallways - human traffic lanes - angled office doors so scientists can bump into one another while entering and leaving, and even "huddle zones," open conference areas for each "family" of five to seven scientists, which themselves are grouped into "tribes" of 70. Pfizer's R&D budget has risen from $401 million in 1988 to $2.28 billion last year.
Shop 'til You Drop
This holiday season both consumers and retailers may expect a "shock to the system" from dramatic changes in buying patterns. "The ways to buy will be different than any other year and you can expect things to get dramatically different with each holiday season after this one," says Ken Gronbach, president of KGA Advertising in Middletown. Gronbach expects spending to be high. "People spend according to how well they feel about the current state of their bank accounts and this year they feel relatively positive," he says. "We expect a lot of purchases to be made by two market segments: people who are aged 35 and up to the early 50s, and kids under 17. "These two sets of consumers will dominate the market by their sheer numbers," he says, pointing to the fact that there are 80 million baby-boomers and 80 million in the under-17 age range (Generation Y, also known as the "Echo Boomers").
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
