Sunday, August 30, 1998
When six inmates busted out of Youngstown prison last month, did they think about the effect that the escape would have on stocks? Yeah, sure they did.
More than ever, though, everything's a commodity, and Wall Street is watching.
Citing the break as "one of the key risks of the private prison sector" that "may hinder the ability to convince future municipalities to go with a private company," PaineWebber Inc. issued a neutral rating on the two publicly-traded companies that own and operate the Northeast Ohio Correctional Facility.
Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) operates the prison, which is owned by Prison Realty Trust. The two companies have announced that they soon will merge. PaineWebber analysts said they are waiting to see the final proxy before they upgrade the neutral rating.
And they are waiting to see how the negative publicity at Youngstown affects future growth in the private-prison sector.
On the brighter side, the analysts were impressed by CCA's cost-control methods. Reading eerily like a soybean production update, the report said: "Cost per man per day dropped to $29.46 from $29.72 in the first quarter, below our expectation of $30."
How weird.
-- Perry Brothers
Machine tools on deck?
If Baseball on Broadway Commons, Cincinnati City Councilman Jim Tarbell's effort to get the new Reds stadium in Over-the-Rhine, fails, Cincinnati Milacron's sale of its machine tool business to California-based Unova Corp. might provide the seed for a new grass-roots effort.
Asked to comment on the sale to Unova, Mr. Tarbell told Enquirer reporter Lucy May: "If they become, as a lot of Californians have, a little bit leery of falling off the edge of the earth and find out how wonderful it is here, maybe Unova will move their headquarters here."
How would machine tools on Broadway sound?
-- Mike Boyer
Clinton sweet on NetWork
Finally, a gift from the president that Ken Starr likely won't investigate. Bill Clinton sent boxes of chocolates to three career planners at the Greater Cincinnati Career Resource NetWork for their assistance in helping a client with White House ties.
The client, from Cincinnati, enrolled in a job-profiling session and a job search workshop with the NetWork. She then told a relative at the White House about her positive experience. He told Mr. Clinton.
The president, impressed by the services, sent three boxes of chocolates to NetWork workers Christine Graue, Erika Bass and Doris Mack. But unlike a certain intern, they are not grumbling. They are, however, holding the chocolates as keepsakes.
"I refuse people's request to open the box," Ms. Bass said. The network, in Roselawn, is more than 45 city and county organizations providing education, employment and training services.
-- Lisa Biank Fasig
Wrong Oakley buyout
The early morning radio teasers Aug. 21 shook Richard J. Blum, president of Kirk & Blum Manufacturing Co., an Oakley-based sheet metal fabricator. Those promos dealt with Cincinnati Milacron's sale of its machine tool business to Unova Corp. Kirk & Blum, which is located around the corner from Milacron's Oakley headquarters, planned to announce this past Wednesday that it was being sold to MYR Group, a Chicago-area specialty contractor.
"We had no idea Milacron was planning their announcement on Friday," Mr. Blum said. "When we heard, "An Oakley employer is being sold,' a few of us choked on our cereal.' " The Kirk & Blum announcement came off without a hitch Wednesday.
-- Mike Boyer
Items for Tipsheet are gathered by Enquirer business reporters and compiled by Lisa Biank Fasig of the business staff.
