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Oil. It’s not behaving well lately. There was the preelection run-up to near $56 a barrel; then it seemed like prices would settle down for a few months at least. We had a little bit of warm weather to spur some selling, then, boom! The temperature dipped and, as if cold weather in January were a surprise, oil headed back near $50. I noted last month that it would probably be stuck in a trading range of $40 to $55,…
The other night, former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton appeared on my TV. They said the tsunami had been devastating. They said people need help. They asked me to send money. “No one can change what happened,” Bush said. “But we can all Slow tsunami wreaks havoc in Indiana change what happens next,” Clinton said. I went to lunch with my editor. After the waiter announced the specials, he pointed to a tent card on the table. It…
Standard Management Corp. ended a difficult 2004 the same way it started the year: trying to seal a deal to sell its life insurance business. The Indianapolis holding company announced in November a plan to sell Standard Life Insurance Company of Indiana to “an unaffiliated third-party buyer.” That marked the third time in 2004 that Standard entered into such an agreement, according to SEC filings. Company shares jumped 27 percent to close at $3.55 the day of the Nov. 22…
It’s up to legislators to approve whether and how the city’s proposed $900 million Indiana Convention Center expansion and stadium complex would be funded, but a handful of property owners that have title to land in the planned stadium’s path will also play a role in determining the project’s fate. The Marion County Capital Improvement Board is working with owners of the few pieces of property it still needs for the construction project and associated parking lots. CIB owns about…
Could 2005 be the tipping point for Indiana to become the center for entrepreneurship in the world? That is a pretty bold statement, considering Indiana’s poor track record. As executive director for Entrepreneur’s Alliance of Indiana, I talk with many entrepreneurs that are excited about the direction Indiana is headed. We have in place a strong educational component with several universities ded icated to research and development and the incubation of new ideas. Geographically we have always had an advantage,…
In the Jan. 3 issue of The New Yorker, writer Malcolm Gladwell reviews Pulitzer Prize-winner Jared Diamond’s new book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.” Diamond’s premise, says Gladwell, “stands in sharp contrast to the conventional explanations for a society’s collapse.” While conventional wisdom has it that “civilizations are destroyed by forces outside their control, by acts of God,” Gladwell writes, “the lesson of ‘Collapse’ is that societies, as often as not, aren’t murdered. They commit suicide: they…
The nation’s largest parking operator is complaining that Indianapolis International Airport canceled its joint-venture contract and handed the business to the local half of the venture without seeking competing proposals. Nashville, Tenn.-based Central Parking Corp. said that, given the chance, it would have offered the airport more to manage the Premier Business Class parking lot than its now-former partner, Global Parking System of Carmel, did. A counteroffer from Central came after the Indianapolis Airport A u t h o r…
We think the argument for diversification rests with a decision to choose “passive” investing over “active” investing. So-called active investment management is found in mutual funds where managers are actively making decisions to buy or sell stocks and bonds. It also describes the investor who builds and manages a portfolio of individual securities. Passive management describes index investing. It amounts to an investor’s deciding he wants exposure to the markets but does not want to be bothered with selecting and…
The fate of “the Zipper Building,” a black-and-white office building at Washington Street and Virginia Avenue, is the subject of rampant speculation amid news a sale is pending. The three-story flatiron-style building at 117 E. Washington St. is owned by a locally based partnership and managed by Freihofer Commercial Real Estate. Firm owner Walter Freihofer confirmed the building is under contract, but would provide no details, including when the sale is expected to close. He also would not identify the…
Dr. Pierre Tran, a former neuroscience researcher at Eli Lilly and Co., was lured from Indianapolis to a suburb of San Francisco recently by a small biotech firm and its ability to develop new drugs more quickly than pharmaceutical giants like Lilly. The region’s diversity and “food culture” also played a role, Tran told the San Francisco Business Times in a story about where the Bay Area finds all the brainpower it needs to fuel its tech culture. Tran went…
Ed DeLaney has been a husband to Ann and a father to Kathleen for many years. But his role as a partner in their legal practice presents an opportunity to bond with them professionally. Ed left Barnes & Thornburg LLP in early 2004 after spending 30 years at what is now the largest law firm in the state. In 1973, when Ed arrived at what was then Barnes Hickam Pantzer & Boyd, the firm employed roughly 40 lawyers. Today, it…
I had a terrific lunch-time conversation with someone involved in college athletics, a person whose perspectives I admire because I know he hasn’t come to them easily. The jumping-off point for our discussion was the recent formation of the College Basketball Partnership, or CBP. It is a collection of coaches, administrators, broadcasters and NCAA staff, convened at the urging of NCAA President Myles Brand. Its task is to “address the challenges and opportunities” facing college basketball, especially at the Division…
The first week of the new year was pretty lousy. All the major indexes are now in the hole for the year, with some industries down 5 percent or more. So is that it for 2005? Should we just pack up and come back again in 12 months? The media is jampacked with stories about how the first week’s performance determines the rest of the month’s outcome, which determines the rest of the year. And most experts had high hopes…
Indianapolis-based Anthem Foundation gave Learning Well Inc. $100,000 to open two school-based clinics in Marion County and support its efforts to address childhood obesity and asthma. But the effect will go much further than that, one board member said. “We’re finally seeing stability and potential for growth,” said Betty Wilson, a member of Learning Well’s executive committee and CEO of The Health Foundation of Greater Indianapolis, which has plowed millions into the program and is a driving force behind the…
I always wonder what people are talking about when they lament Indiana’s “brain drain.” Statistics usually follow, detailing the college graduates taking jobs in other states. It is perhaps a contrarian’s viewpoint, but we should, in fact, encourage these young people to go seek their fortunes. The fact that they are leaving is a symptom, not the problem. Our problem is there are not enough Hoosiers who can create the jobs that could employ our young graduates. We do have…
The city’s only National Public Radio affiliate is launching a local news department for the first time in its almost 20 years of operation, and has signed a deal that could gain it thousands of listeners south of the city’s center. WFYI-FM 90.1 hired veteran TV newscaster Scott Hoke in late November as local host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” and will hire a reporter within six weeks. The radio station plans to soon after launch a weekly sports show featuring…
Whenever Indiana and Purdue universities get together on the hardwood or the debate arena, the rivalry is intense. But as various public and private players around the state put on a full-court press for Indiana’s life sciences future, the schools have teamed up like a dynamic backcourt duo. The Scientist, a biweekly publication delivered to 75,000 people worldwide, in November ranked Purdue No. 2 and Indiana No. 10 on a list of “Best Places to Work in Academia,” based on…
It’s good to have job growth in the U.S. economy once again, even if the monthly gains in employment reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics occasionally fall short of some analysts’ expectations. After a long spell of minuscule job growth in the wake of a painful recession, we’ve grown used to disappointing announcements from the federal statistical agency responsible for tracking the labor market. But the recent report on the employment situation in December caps a year-long streak of…
The state ran into problems, though, when several insurers became insolvent, which cost the state more than $1 million in recent years. Starting Jan. 1, all the premiums began going into a trust account, which pays the claims as needed. The insurance providers will not be called upon unless that account runs dry, Cooper said. The state safety net for Worker’s Compensation insurance began the new year with a new plan to pay claims, one that might lead to fewer…
Last week in this space, legislators were challenged to learn something about our state. This week, we will provide some data so our busy representatives do not have to do the work themselves. All our data are derived from the excellent States-in-Profile section of STATS Indiana, maintained by the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, a service supported by the Indiana Department of Commerce. The Indiana economy is the 15th-largest in the nation. Our gross…
