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Clarian Health Partners CEO Dan Evans offers a simple explanation for how the People Mover, Clarian’s futuristic rail system, came to be a few years ago. “People ask me all the time how we paid for it. I said, ‘Thank the stock market,'” he said. The bull market of the late 1990s allowed Clarian to use mostly investment income to fund the $40 million transportation project that opened in 2003 and connects its three downtown hospitals: Methodist, IU and Riley…
Consumers who have been contemplating bankruptcy are now flocking to file before more stringent regulations take effect Oct. 17. Federal lawmakers passed a bankruptcy reform measure in March to make it harder for people to wipe away unsecured debt while keeping some protected assets. The aim is to curb perceived abuses of the system by shepherding more filers through Chapter 13-instead of Chapter 7-which requires consumers to at least repay some debt. Indiana already has a high bankruptcy rate. The…
Charitable giving often is a spur-of-themoment thing, particularly if it’s a response to a disaster. Still, charitable groups, relief agencies and financial advisers say a little thought before making a donation is a good idea. Giant disasters such as Hurricane Katrina jolt many people into trying to help, often with no particular idea beyond simply doing something. However, some types of help are more helpful than others. Properly following the rules of charitable giving can provide a tax benefit. It…
A Michigan developer plans to build a 300,000-square-foot shopping center anchored by a Wal-Mart Supercenter along Michigan Road north of 106th Street, continuing the rapid expansion of retail on the Michigan Road corridor. Heritage RDG LLC, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based developer new to the Indianapolis market, recently filed plans with town officials in both Zionsville and Carmel to build the center. The 36-acre parcel straddles the Boone-Hamilton county line and must be approved by local governments in both counties. Project…
Individuals and companies that owe taxes to the state are being given a chance to pay up without interest, fees or penalties during a two-month amnesty window opened by the Indiana Department of Revenue. The tax amnesty-the first one offered by Indiana and unusually generous compared with other states’ programs-is touted as a way to add an estimated $65 million to the state’s coffers and provide delinquent payers with a way to clear debt off their books. More than $1.3…
Once you’ve lived in New Orleans, you never really leave. A part of you stays on. You don’t feel quite whole again except when you return. Then it’s like regaining an appendage you had learned to live without, but suddenly realize how much you have missed. Transfixed by events there over the past month, I have been missing that part of me I left behind in 1996 when I drove a U-Haul north after three years as a reporter and…
As the third quarter winds to a close, investors find the stock market behaving much as it did last year. At this point in both 2004 and 2005, the S&P 500 index (with dividends reinvested) had risen about 2 percent. Most Wall Street pundits are predicting the market will finish this year with a repeat of last year’s performance, when a post-election rally pushed the S&P 500 to a 10.9-percent return. One group of investors is praying they are right:…
Class-action attorneys hit the jackpot three years ago when Conseco Inc. agreed to settle securitiesfraud litigation for $120 million. At the time, it was the 10thbiggest settlement for a case of its kind. This time around, attorneys, and the investors they represent, appear likely to go home empty-handed. Indianapolis federal Judge David Hamilton in July quietly dismissed a securitiesfraud case filed three years ago on behalf of investors who held Conseco stock between April 2001 and August 2002, a span…
Multicast Networks Group LLC plans to launch the network in 2006, said industry veteran Michael Ruggiero, who heads the 22-year-old ALL TV Services communications consulting firm. “We know the industry needs more content. Broadcast groups we’ve talked with are very excited about the concept,” said Ruggiero, chairman of Multicast. Ruggiero also is vice president of distribution for The Tube Music Network, developed by MTV co-founder Les Garland. Ruggiero recently helped broker a deal to run The Tube on digital channels…
Business fliers accustomed to first-class seating will soon be eligible for privileged security screening at Indianapolis International Airport. Airport operator BAA Indianapolis is about to seek proposals from firms to operate a “registered traveler” program. It will entitle any frequent travelers who pass a government background check to use special security checkpoints-bypassing long lines and trouserloosening “secondary screening” passengers must sometimes endure. No more suffering in line behind bubble-gum-popping teens headed for Aruba. Show your registered traveler ID card and…
No one really knows how Katrina is going to affect the economy. Some economists say it will be a whopper of a negative while some are convinced-and convincing-that she ultimately will be positive for GDP. But based on the fact the stock market, which is the great predicting machine, advanced a couple of percentage points in the week following the disaster, I’d have to go with the positive bet. The slow response and evacuation snafus were one problem, but the…
All my life, wellmeaning people have tried to get me interested in chess. It’s not like I don’t know the game; I do. It’s just that it bores me. I tell them I’ll take up chess when the rules are changed to allow the queen to conspire with the bishops to have the knights assassinate the king. Most such games bore me. Card games, even poker, seem insipid. There’s nothing at stake but money, after all. Logic puzzles leave me…
Ambassadair Travel Club Inc. may chart a new destination with the help of a Chicago private equity firm whose holdings range from gas station chain Clark Brands to coffee-pot-maker West Bend. Waveland Investments LLC is the face behind Waveland Holdings LLC, an entity named in court records as signing a letter of intent to acquire Ambassadair from bankrupt parent ATA Holdings Corp. While Ambassadair said it remains profitable, despite ATA’s troubles, it has lost more than 20 percent of the…
Vena Holden is picky about the seconds in her shops, specializing in better brand-name clothing, accessories, linens, gifts and shoes. She makes clear that hers is not a used clothing store. “We look for the higher-end items and are selective in what we take,” said Holden, 45, who founded the appropriately named Selective Seconds after years of shopping consignment shops for herself when she worked as a legal secretary and office manager for local law firm Plews Shadley Racher and…
Purdue University researcher Richard Borgens developed a fascination with nerve regeneration during childhood, when he watched the newts in his father’s aquarium regrow legs bitten off by fish. Today, he’s developing nerve-regeneration methods that may prove instrumental in treating spinal-cord injuries. Borgens directs Purdue’s Center for Paralysis Research and is the founder of Andara Life Sciences Inc., a startup whose treatments are showing promise in clinical trials. One of Borgens’ therapies involves the patented oscillating field stimulator device, which stimulates…
The state health department wants to spotlight serious medical errors in hopes the scrutiny will reduce the likelihood of future mishaps. The department’s Indiana Hospital Council recommended last month that it start requiring hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers to disclose 27 severe problems-also called “never events”- within 15 days of their discovery. The list of those events, which was devised a few years ago by the not-forprofit National Quality Forum, includes surgeries performed on the wrong body part or the…
United Way of Central Indiana hopes to raise $36.6 million this year to address a range of community needs-a difficult task given the charitable response to Hurricane Katrina and the loss of some onetime gifts. As the campaign kicks off, IBJ is taking a close look at the organization and its massive fundraising drive. Where does the money come from? How is it spent? And who’s leading the charge? Pages39A-41A Big names, big bucks The local United Way has received…
Because of them, people stocked basements with food, guns and ammo. Others fell prostrate on hilltops and sang Kumbaya. There was fear software developers would inadvertently destroy the world with the infamous Y2K computer glitch, in the opening hours of 2000. These days, however, it is the developers who are worried-about things like how a glitch can give hackers access to customer credit card and Social Security numbers. Or get companies in trouble when software doesn’t capture information required by…
To be illiterate in our society is more than an inconvenience, or an obstacle to making a living. It is also a badge of shame. That’s why we should all be concerned about the results of a January study that told us almost a million Indiana workers-one-third of the work force-failed to meet the minimum literacy standards for knowledge-based jobs. Many of us in the fields of research and policymaking have responded to this disturbing finding the same way we…
My alma mater, Indiana University, has taken its share of licks in recent times. In fact, I’ve used this space to throw some of the punches. But its recent decision-coinciding with the start of football season-to try to oust the party animals from the jungle just south of Memorial Stadium on game days was prudent, correct and too long in coming. This, folks, has been a human and legal calamity waiting to happen. The “jungle” is a park-like area across…
