Also. . .
* Sybase Inc., which makes database and other business software, warned that quarterly earnings would fall short of expectations because of a sudden freeze in sales to U.S. customers in the final days of March. The Emeryville, Calif.-based company announced preliminary results for the quarter ending March 31 showing a pro forma operating profit of between 23 cents to 26 cents a share based on revenue of between $227 million to $231 million. Financial analysts had expected the software provider to earn 28 cents a share, according to investment research firm First Call/Thomson Financial.
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* United Airlines flight attendants voted to authorize their union to call a strike if parent UAL Corp. buys US Airways Group Inc. without getting a contract waiver from the workers. The world’s largest airline warned that attendants face legal and disciplinary action if they follow a call for “illegal job actions.”
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* Columbia House said it will close its giant compact disc and video distribution center by the end of the year, a decision that means all 500 employees will lose their jobs. An executive from the company’s New York headquarters arrived in Colorado City, Colo., to deliver the news. Columbia House distributes 100,000 videotapes and compact discs daily from its warehouse near Pueblo, Colo. The company is co-owned by AOL Time Warner and Sony. Columbia House also has distribution centers in Indiana, Canada and Mexico. Record-club sales nationwide have been sagging for several years because of competition from Internet sales and sites such as Napster.
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* Twelve former brokers at defunct Meyers Pollock Robbins Inc. accused of stealing more than $176 million from investors through high-pressure “boiler room” tactics must stand trial on charges of enterprise corruption, a New York judge has ruled. State Supreme Court Justice Bernard J. Fried described Meyers Pollock as a “far-flung” business that operated on a scale large enough to warrant the enterprise corruption charge that is the central element of the 111-count indictment. Twenty people were arrested in April 1999 and accused of swindling more than 16,000 investors by artificially inflating the price of almost two dozen companies. A trial for seven of the 12 brokers is scheduled to begin this spring, authorities said. Eight former Meyers Pollock officials, including former President Michael Ploshnick, have pleaded guilty to charges.
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