Let’s Make Up a DealThe Los Angeles...
Let’s Make Up a Deal
The Los Angeles office of the law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison pulled off a coup last month when it recruited Mayor Tom Bradley as rainmaker-to-be when he leaves office next year.
Here’s another previously undisclosed coup.
The firm advised Columbus, Ohio-based retailer The Limited in a successful acquisition of Los Angeles department store chain Carter Hawley Hale Stores Inc.
The takeover, of course, never happened.
But one wouldn’t know it from a promotional brochure produced for the firm not long ago.
The brochure is decorated with various “tombstones”--financial ads used by deal makers to tout a transaction--of deals presumably worked on by the firm.
Included in the cluster of ads is one for the investment bank Lazard Freres & Co. announcing that it advised The Limited on the acquisition.
The Limited did take two unsuccessful
runs at Carter Hawley in the 1980s. Carter Hawley, parent of The Broadway, is now controlled by Chicago’s Zell/Chilmark Fund and emerged from bankruptcy proceedings just this month.
A spokeswoman for the law firm says the designer of the brochure took a few artistic liberties. She assures us that it’s no longer in use.
Growth Industry
One thing the recession hasn’t stopped is a flood of books advising people on how to get a job, even if there aren’t any.
Some recent titles include “Power Resumes,” “150 Best Companies for Liberal Arts Graduates,” “The Career Match Method” and “Best Resumes for $75,000+ Executive Jobs.”
Then there’s the Learning Annex course offered on the Westside that seems especially appropriate now. It’s called “Making a Living Without a Job.”
Sleep on These Results
Anybody who thinks that consultants waste too much time on trivial matters should be convinced otherwise by a recent study from PKF Consulting, a hotel and real estate consulting firm in San Francisco.
After studying 64 years of hotel occupancy rates, PKF concluded that Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton has a 67% chance of being elected.
The logic is as follows: PKF predicts that occupancy rates will rise this year. Occupancy rates climbed in nine of the election years since 1929. Democrats won in six of those nine years.
The good news for beleaguered hotel owners is that occupancy averages 72.2% while Democrats are in the White House, compared to 66.8% when Republicans are in office. The bad news? Hotels get away with charging guests 45.1% more during Republican administrations.
Briefly . . .
First Hawaiian Bank is planning to blow up its 18-story Honolulu headquarters in March so it can build a new one, and is soliciting Hollywood producers to film the blast . . . Future bestseller? A booklet called “Successful Termination” is being marketed to companies . . . Squeeze ahead for the Juiceman? The Trends Journal believes that the sale of juice extractors is peaking and predicts that “the juicer will become like a waffle iron--something that’s likely to be found in the closet.”
