Turning Up the Heat
Former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. has certainly been raked over the coals, with his conviction last month on fraud charges in state court in Los Angeles and federal indictments pending against him in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
Now workers at a Phoenix store say the FBI is interested in Keating’s purchase last summer of nearly $2,000 in barbecue equipment.
News reports from Phoenix said the purchases were made at Barbeques Galore by the man who for two years has maintained that he’s broke while fighting regulatory and legal troubles.
In a phone interview, salesman Jim Chenoweth said Keating bought the equipment with a check last August about a week before his fraud trial in Los Angeles. He described the equipment as two top-of-the-line “five-burner, turbo gas grills” priced at nearly $1,000 each, along with the usual barbecue accessories.
“He’s a hell of a nice guy when you just talk to him person to person. He was quite cheerful,” said Chenoweth, who added that two FBI agents asked for details about the transaction about 10 days ago.
Keating’s lawyer, Stephen C. Neal, could not be reached for comment.
Auction Strikes a Chord
For investors who believe that stocks are overpriced in the wake of the market’s recent surge, consider the amounts these investments commanded at a recent Sotheby’s rock memorabilia auction:
* A Bill Haley electric guitar for $27,500.
* A Jim Morrison “Keep Opening the Doors of Los Angeles” notebook for $25,300. (But a Morrison-written biography of “The Doors,” in which he described the band’s former base of Venice as having the “atmosphere of a dying arcade,” did not get a high enough bid.)
* A Nehru jacket Jimi Hendrix wore on stage for $3,300.
* Elvis Presley memorabilia showed mixed results. One of the King’s glass-beaded stage capes sold for $4,400. But a cream cotton jumpsuit, which Sotheby’s hoped would bring as much as $30,000, went unsold because the high bid was just $17,000.
Return of the Kuwaiti Colonel
Lost amid the hoopla last week marking the first anniversary of the Persian Gulf War was an announcement that 14 of the 19 Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises are up and running again in Kuwait.
A major problem that many of the restaurants faced in reopening was the effect of Iraqi troops’ looting during the occupation of Kuwait. According to a Kentucky Fried Chicken spokesman, Saddam Hussein’s troops were partial to cash registers and frying equipment.
Briefly . . .
In case you missed it: AT&T;, effective last Wednesday, raised the rates after the first minute by about 8% on calls to Libya and 14% on calls to Iran. . . . BankAmerica Chief Executive Richard M. Rosenberg, speaking to a packed luncheon crowd in Los Angeles last week on the subject of banking: “I’m overwhelmed by the fact we have 750 people here today, because this is about the least exciting subject I can think of.”. . . A breakfast meeting this week to discuss the glut of office space in Los Angeles is called “Downtown Real Estate Outlook: Truth or Consequences?”
