Pearson to Buy a Publisher From News Corp.
Date: 10 February 1996
By Kenneth N. Gilpin
Kenneth Gilpin
Moving to expand its educational publishing operations in the United States, the British-based media company Pearson P.L.C. said yesterday that it had agreed to acquire HarperCollins Educational Publishing Inc. from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580 million. Pearson, whose holdings include The Financial Times and Penguin books, said it would merge the HarperCollins operation with its existing Addison-Wesley Longman educational publishing division, which it bought in 1988 for $283 million.
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TELEVISION;ABC Sends a Young Point of View Into the Field
Date: 11 February 1996
By Lawrie Mifflin
Lawrie Mifflin
Anderson Cooper recalls being stuck at an airport in Rwanda in 1994, weighed down by luggage and video camera, and watching enviously as a CBS News crew left a plane, got into a waiting car and sped off. "At that point, the highest priority in life was a vehicle," he said. At that point, Mr. Cooper was chief foreign correspondent for Channel One, the television company that broadcasts a 12-minute daily news program into 12,000 American high schools. Few adults had heard of him, but he was a celebrity to some eight million American teen-agers who saw his first-person accounts of devastation, despair and defiance in Burma, Vietnam, Somalia, Iran, Haiti and Bosnia.
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ON POLITICS;Parting Shots? Not From This Pundit
Date: 11 February 1996
By Iver Peterson
Iver Peterson
There is an old description of reporters as people who view the battle from afar and then come down from the hills to shoot the wounded. Political columnists are not so crass. We like to offer lots of free advice and constructive criticism to the wounded first. Then we shoot them. Some of that gunfire came from this corner of the paper for the past year, including a fair number of misses. Now that the time has come to pass this space on to someone else, it is probably appropriate that the departing tenant acknowledge that yes, this is the place that broke the news that Bill Bradley was a cinch to run for re-election. (He didn't.) This is where it was first reported that Virginia Littell might put up a fight for the chairmanship of the State Republcian Commitee against Chuck Haytaian. (Mrs. Littell proved to be far too good a soldier to do such a thing.) And this column also predicted that Governor Whitman's new budget was in trouble because she had failed to find a way to help the state's hospitals pay for charity care. (Nothing came of that, either. Yet.)
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COMPANY NEWS;ACE TO BUY TEMPEST REINSURANCE OF BERMUDA
Date: 10 February 1996
By Dow Jones
Dow Jones
Ace Ltd. said yesterday that it had agreed to acquire the Tempest Reinsurance Company of Bermuda for stock valued at about $605 million. Tempest was formed in 1993 by the General Re Corporation of Stamford, Conn., to reinsure against property catastrophes. Reinsurance is protection that insurance carriers buy to reduce their own risk. General Re initially invested $100 million in Tempest and then began seeking investments from other companies. General Re will not retain any interest in Tempest after Ace's purchase. Ace, an insurance concern also based in Bermuda, will exchange about 13.3 million shares in the deal. Its stock rose $2.75, to $48.25, on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.
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COMPANY NEWS;LCI IS NAMED CARRIER FOR BELL ATLANTIC AND NYNEX
Date: 10 February 1996
Bloomberg Business News
Bloomberg News
LCI International Inc. of McLean, Va., said yesterday that it had been named by the joint mobile venture of the Bell Atlantic Corporation and the Nynex Corporation to provide long-distance service from Maine to the Carolinas under a multiyear contract. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. LCI International said it had more than 60 million circuit miles of digital fiber optic line and carried more than 4.9 billion minutes over its network last year. Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile, based in Bedminster, N.J., is a wireless service provider and has more than three million customers in a service area that covers about 55 million people, LCI said.
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COMPANY NEWS;BRADLEES TO CUT 450 JOBS AS PART OF A REVAMPING
Date: 10 February 1996
Dow Jones
Dow Jones
Bradlees Inc., the discount retailer, plans to eliminate about 450 positions as part of a restructuring aimed at saving the ailing retail chain $19 million annually, the company said yesterday. The company said it would consolidate several store management positions at all 134 Bradlees locations. Bradlees said the company was trying to position itself for future growth and establish an organization and cost structure that was in line with industry standards. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last June.
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COMPANY NEWS;MAYTAG TO SHUT KITCHEN RANGE PLANT IN INDIANAPOLIS
Date: 10 February 1996
AP
The Maytag Corporation said yesterday that it would close its 860-employee kitchen range plant in Indianapolis as part of a restructuring that will result in a $50 million charge against earnings this year. The nation's fourth-largest appliance maker said it expected $35 million in annual savings to result. Maytag's chairman and chief executive, Leonard Hadley, said in a statement that Maytag would consolidate its Jenn-Air kitchen range production at its plant in Cleveland, Tenn., and close its Jenn-Air plant in Indianapolis. In the restructuring of its home appliance business, Maytag is creating a single business unit where two units have been operating.
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World News Briefs;Burmese Refuse To Extradite Drug Lord
Date: 11 February 1996
Reuters
The Burmese Government has refused to extradite a reputed opium lord to the United States, where he is wanted on heroin trafficking charges.
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