Scrambled SignalsEgg magazine’s editors had some of...
Scrambled Signals
Egg magazine’s editors had some of it on their faces with the publication last week of their March issue.
Page 4 of the avant-garde, bicoastal magazine published by Forbes Inc. is a note to readers saying Egg has folded. But Page 82 highlights “Coming Attractions” of future stories, including features on New Jersey and Paris. What’s going on?
“We were finished with the issue on Jan. 3. We were told we were ceasing publication on the fourth,” ex-Editor Hal Rubenstein said in explaining the chaos. He predicted that the stories would hatch elsewhere.
High-Yield Name Sought
There may be life after Drexel after all, although possibly under a new name.
Although no final decision has been made, executives remaining at the collapsed investment banking house are considering shedding the tarnished Drexel Burnham Lambert name should the firm emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Presumably, “Bache” is available now that it has been dumped by the newly named Prudential Securities. “E. F. Hutton”--no longer part of the Shearson Lehman Bros. title--may be available. Then there is a batch of names that would send a clear signal that the firm has changed course, including “Drexel Burnham Milkenless.”
Double Real Estate Whammy
Lawrence K. Fish took on some of banking’s biggest real estate problems when he left Southern California last March to run the moribund Bank of New England, which failed in January because of a huge number of bad real estate loans made by his predecessors.
One unexpected real estate problem for Fish has been selling his Pacific Palisades home amid the Southland’s slow market. Nearly one year after leaving for Boston, Fish’s home remains unsold.
It’s not for lack of trying; Westside real estate agents say the asking price was cut last month to $3.8 million from $4 million.
Truth in Advertising
Friday’s edition of the Variety trade publication carried an ad by a Florida aircraft firm seeking $275,000 for “Ex-General Noriega’s Lear Jet 35A.”
Only one problem: According to the ad, the plane suffered bullet damage in the 1989 Panama fighting and is “not flyable.”
Briefly . . .
Tomorrowland predictor: A Salomon Bros. report says one indicator of the growing pressures on California’s economy is Disneyland’s cut-rate $20 admission for Southland residents . . . A San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau spokeswoman says it is highly unlikely that the agency will ever use the city’s “Baghdad by the Bay” nickname in promoting tourism . . . Abysmal science: Security Pacific has slashed the size of its economics staff to seven from 18 to trim costs . . . Bankruptcy court officials have assigned seven employees full time to work on Carter Hawley Hale’s huge case and are setting up two special post office boxes, a telephone information line, private photocopying and special mailing services for creditors.
