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Under pressure?: Largest outside shareholder could be pushing Marsh to find buyer

Marsh Supermarkets Inc.’s decision to seek a buyer might not have been made within the company’s Indianapolis headquarters. It might have come from 115 miles away in Cincinnati. That’s home base for the c o m p a ny ‘s largest outside shareholder, A m e r i c a n Financial Group Inc., an insurer controlled by the family of billionaire tycoon Carl Lindner. A source knowledgeable about the discussions said AFG, a Marsh shareholder for more than two…

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SPORTS: Eggs laid in NFL preseason usually don’t hatch

Thoughts about this, that and the other: By the time you read this, the Tennessee Titans may have sprung the biggest upset of the NFL season, rendering some of the discussion moot. Remember, on any given Sunday. That’s why I always say that, in the NFL, every game is a big game. Therefore, that the Indianapolis Colts made it at least into December winning every one of those big games is an amazing accomplishment, especially when you recall the hand…

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CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Setting an example for Sacramento

“To improve Sacramento, learn from Indianapolis” was the headline of a column in the Nov. 18 Sacramento Business Journal. It’s always nice to get a compliment and some good PR. Turns out a delegation of nearly a hundred Sacramentonians-or is it Sacramentites?-were here in October on a three-day study mission to learn how to become a great city. It was the seventh year in a row for them to make a learning visit to another community. Tom Stallard, head of…

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Industry races to promote itself: Statewide motorsports group hopes to thwart competition from other U.S. markets

Area motorsports leaders are gearing up for another run at unifying the industry and assuring the region retains its status as one of the world’s leading motorsports markets. Organizers of the latest effort promise they won’t spin their wheels this time around. They’re casting a wider net-going statewide with a motorsports association-to attract more members and build more clout with the media, local and state lawmakers, and service providers, such as banks and insurance companies. The Indiana Motorsports Association Inc….

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SPORTS: Final Four director takes readers on inspiring ride

For six years, he was a part-time resident of our city. Believe me when I say Indianapolis was full-time better for it. Not many folks here know this fellow named Bill Hancock, or the integral behindthe-scenes role he has played in the NCAA’s staging of its showcase event, the men’s basketball tournament and the Final Four. I’ll sum it up this way: The NCAA’s tournament manual is about 4 inches thick. Hancock, who served as the tournament director, could quote…

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INVESTING: To do well in market, study sectors’ relative strengths

You’re cool. You wear hip clothes. You get invited to the best parties. You drive the most popular car. Most of the time, you measure how cool you are by looking around and seeing what other people are doing. You don’t want to be the only person at the restaurant or the only one at the game. The same concept is true in the stock market. Investors want to own the hot stocks. A stock gets hot because it is…

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SPORTS Bill Benner: Still haunted by the video clip that won’t go away

It was a year ago on a mid-November Friday night when we had settled into our easy chairs, watching on television as the Indiana Pacers were wrapping up an impressive and statementsending early-season victory over the Detroit Pistons in Auburn Hills, Mich. Then, of course, all hell broke loose and the franchise we had grown up with-indeed, all of the NBA-took a hit harder than any administered in the stands. In today’s mega-media world, few events in sports history have…

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Higher stadium price looms: Hurricanes likely to blow up costs for construction projects

The Gulf Coast hurricanes may push construction costs sharply higher for several years, experts say, potentially adding millions of dollars in costs to the $625 million football stadium as well as other public projects in their early stages. “Even a 1-percent cost increase on a project like [the stadium] is significant, and the effects from these hurricanes is likely to be higher than that,” said Patrick Barkey, an economist and director of economic and policy studies at the Miller College…

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SPORTS: IU sneaking up on Purdue, but not on its leader

One year ago, I used this column to be critical of my alma mater, Indiana University, while lauding upstate rival Purdue. In the nearly five years I’ve been writing for Indianapolis Business Journal, no column of mine has received as much reaction as that one. And while 90 percent of that piece was devoted to the athletics programs-football, in particular-the 10 percent in which I referred to the respective images and leaderships of Indiana and Purdue received the most attention….

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Could race teams bridge divide without series’ blessing?: Ganassi pushing for IRL-Champ Car cross-pollination

The pull of some Champ Car markets is so strong, it has the owner of a prominent Indy Racing League team talking about launching a cooperative effort with a team from the rival open-wheel racing series. And he’s urging other IRL teams to do the same. Chip Ganassi last month proposed IRL and Champ Car teams partner so they can compete in both series’ biggest races and perhaps even square off for a cross-series championship. Ganassi told Speed TV that…

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Butler construction project targeted for fall ’06 finish: Student housing, rec center to join historic campus

The landscape around Butler University’s historic Hinkle Fieldhouse is undergoing dramatic changes not seen on the private campus since the early 1960s. Construction began in May on a $50 million project to build a student recreation center west of the 77-year-old arena and student housing to the east. Both should be finished by the start of the fall semester in August. The construction projects are the largest since Irwin Library, Clowes Memorial Hall and Lilly Hall were built in 1961,…

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Ice Miller experiment turns financial corner: IMSS is only area sports agency licensed by NFL, NBA

At a time when many sports agents are getting squeezed out by mega-agencies with Shaquille O’Neal’s mass and New York Yankee-like resources, a small Indianapolis firm is becoming a real player. A curious experiment launched in August 2001 by local law firm Ice Miller has become a profitable venture despite long odds and a slow start. “It’s fair to say that launching this effort has been harder than we thought,” said IM Sports Services LLC Chairman John R. Thornburgh. “After…

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SPORTS Bill Benner: Peyton on paychecks and his final pass

Part II of my no X’s-and-O’s interview with Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning: Benner: Conseco Fieldhouse could be called the House That Reggie Miller Built. Obviously, a great number of people have been involved in the new stadium. Yet it could be known as the House That Peyton Built. How do you feel about your role in elevating the franchise to the point where the stadium became a necessity? Manning: It gets me excited. That we can have a state-of-the-art…

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SPORTS: Q&A: Peyton Manning on priorities, life after Reggie

The Indianapolis Colts’ bye week has arrived, which means it’s time for a casual conversation-no X’s and O’s or New England Patriots talk allowed-with quarterback Peyton Manning. Not long ago, I sat down with No. 18 to talk about his place in the community, rather than his place behind center. Here is the first of a two-part interview. Benner: Your community service work through the PeyBack Foundation is wellknown. It’s now given more than $1 million to youth programs here,…

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Startups offered a fast track: Motorsports-themed incubator gets green light in Brownsburg

Hendricks County officials hope a new business incubator there revs the engines of local entrepreneurs. The motorsports-themed facility, to be known as Fast-Start, got the green light after a year-long feasibility study concluded the project was a logical fit for a community that already houses Prudhomme Racing, John Force Racing and Bill Simpson’s Impact Racing. “It would help achieve some of our goals in Brownsburg,” said Jeanette Baker, town council president and treasurer of the Hendricks County Economic Development Partnership,…

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SPORTS: My apologies to the commish; college football rules

In that span, I viewed Indiana-Iowa, Purdue-Northwestern, Ohio State-Michigan State, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Notre Dame-USC, Michigan-Penn State and UCLAWashington State. Sometimes simultaneously. That’s because I also have picture-in-picture, which I also believe to be one of the great inventions of all time. Anyway, by the time day turned into night, I again was reminded why college football-with all due respect to the Indianapolis Colts and the NFL-remains far and above the superior form of the game. Allow me to clarify. There is…

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BioStorage gets set for major expansion: Three-year-old local firm eyeing West Coast, Europe

The 60 industrial-size freezers standing in formation like soldiers at attention look unassuming from the outside, but their contents are invaluable. Stored at temperatures of minus-80 degrees Celsius, the millions of biological samples inside the far-west-side warehouse represent the future of disease research and drug development. The repository is operated by BioStorage Technologies, a 3-year-old venture created by a pair of researchers who met at the local office of Princeton, N.J.-based Covance Inc., a drug-development services firm. Oscar Moralez developed…

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Hot mod madness: Customizer Kenny Brown enjoys performance-car revival

In a dark corner of the Kenny Brown Performance garage is the 2005 Mustang Ford Motor Co. should have built. Supercharger. Disc brakes as big as the tires of some cars. All hung on a chassis that’s Prince Charles stiff. And shrouding its meaty tires are a protruding rear fender and a filled-in quarter window raked all the way back to the taillights, akin to the 1967 Mustang fastback. “It’s kind of like the marriage of heritage and technology,” said…

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Lee, Willis prosper outside limelight: Former WRTV co-anchors run growing public relations firm

News defined the careers of Clyde Lee and Diane Willis for a combined five decades. And it was the nation’s biggest news event of the last decade-9/11-that served as an ominous backdrop for the duo’s first entrepreneurial venture. “We incorporated in August 2001, and less than a month later, 9/11 hit, and we thought, ‘Oh my,'” Lee recalled. But more than four years later, Lee/Willis Communications is still standing-and prospering. The fiscal swoon that followed 9/11 caused many companies to…

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SPORTS: We’ve arrived as a big-time football town-for now

Are you ready for some football? Of course you are. That the Indianapolis Colts are making the first of not one, not two, but three appearances on ABC’s “Monday Night Football” is once again recognition of the obvious, which is that Jim Irsay’s ownership, Bill Polian’s leadership and Tony Dungy’s coaching have made the Horseshoes as hot a commodity nationally as they are locally. Not that Peyton Manning, Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison, Dwight Freeney, Gary Brackett, Cato June et al…

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