A Calendar of Profit
Ever wonder what to do with corporate annual reports after you’ve finished reading them?
These glossy books don’t usually have any purpose other than to inform shareholders of the company’s financial progress during the year. So, once read, do you stack them up for posterity or, maybe, add them to a local landfill?
If you are a shareholder of Martin Lawrence Limited Editions, a Van Nuys-based art retailer, there’s no need to wonder. This company’s 1990 annual report--which is a limited edition itself--is reversible. The flip side is a 1991 calendar that highlights each month’s listing with works by modern artists such as Fredrick Prescott, Linnea Pergola and Mark King.
The company’s annual report has doubled as a calender for the past three years, says Chief Financial Officer Allan A. Baron. “It keeps us in mind for another 12 months, which I think is important for shareholder relations,” he added.
Unfortunately, these reports are in short supply. Only 6,500 are printed each year, so Baron says he’s “very particular” about who gets them.
Doing Just Fine, Thank You
From the Reports-of-Its-Death-Have-Been-Greatly-Exaggerated File:
A financially healthy chain of Southern California women’s clothing stores called Ames has a problem with a familiar ring--the financially unhealthy Rocky Hill, Conn.-based discount retailer called Ames Department Stores, which is operating under bankruptcy-law protection.
The two companies share nothing except a name. But when the ailing Ames recently announced nearly 18,000 layoffs at its stores in the South and Midwest, the other Ames got nothing but aggravation, said Richard Oliver, chief executive of Culver City-based R & H Oliver Corp., which owns the 11-store Ames chain (the healthy one).
Employees called to ask if they still had jobs, vendors requested payments in cash, customers wondered if their lay-aways were still secure and one mall manager even telephoned to find out “how they stood,” Oliver said. Despite the grief, Oliver has no plans to rechristen the chain that was named after his uncle, Henry Ames, who opened the first store in Culver City in 1948.
“We’re a very good, growing business,” Oliver said, adding that the company opened eight new stores in the past 18 months. “We just want people to know that we’re alive and well and it’s not us” in bankruptcy court.
Maybe It Should Try Allegis
The folks at soon-to-be independent Santa Fe Pacific Realty Corp., which is to be spun off to shareholders of Santa Fe Pacific Corp. later this year, has changed the company’s name in an attempt to better portray its new, non-railroad identity. Maybe they should try again.
Since June 1, the new name of Santa Fe Pacific Realty has been . . . (drum roll, please) Catellus Development Corp. It is a name, selected from entries submitted by employees, that grafts “Tellus,” the Roman goddess of the earth, with “Ca” for California, the San Francisco-based company explained in a press release.
“Since we own nearly 2 million acres of land, most of which is in California, we thought it appropriate to have a name associated with the earth, as well as with California,” stated Vernon B. Schwartz, chief executive of Catellus Development, whose holdings include Union Station in downtown Los Angeles and the huge Mission Bay development project in San Francisco.
However, the authoritative Cassell’s Latin Dictionary defines “catellus” variously as “a little dog, puppy . . . a term of endearment . . . a little chain”--cute, but not exactly the image a large developer might seek.
“There’s no connection,” between the Latin definitions and the company’s new name, a Catellus spokeswoman said. “ CA in our minds stands for California. We had no idea it (the name) had another meaning.”
