Business wouldn't be business without numbers — and you can't judge 2001 without looking at some of the numbers: an unprecedented 11 interest rate cuts, a 25 percent rise in public company bankruptcies, a $1.3 billion tax cut package.

        A look at some of the more home-grown numbers that made 2001 what it was:

        • 3: Number of bidders for Baldwin Piano & Organ Co. in a bankruptcy court-supervised auction in October. GE Capital Corp., Baldwin's largest creditor, was deemed the successful bidder with an offer of $17 million and subsequently sold Baldwin to Gibson Guitar Corp., one of the unsuccessful bidders. Boston liquidator Gordon Brothers was the other unsuccessful bidder.

        • $4 billion: Yearly sales expected by Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola before the two companies scuttled their February deal to package P&G's Pringles and Sunny Delight with Coke's Minute Maid.

        • 27.8: The percentage of automobile dealers who predicted a decline in dealership profit in 2001, according to a survey by the National Automotive Dealers Association. It was the highest rating of negative sentiment since 1991.

        • 42 cents: The closing price of Chiquita Brands International Inc. stock Nov. 15. That would pay for one banana, and compares to an all-time high of $50 per share in 1991.

        • $44: The price of a box of Crest Whitestrips. It's the most promising new product at Procter & Gamble Co., and a symbol of P&G's spread into more health and beauty products.

        • 52: The number of executives from Greater Cincinnati's 100 biggest privately owned companies who consider parking as a problem to doing business in downtown Cincinnati. Local government, with 46 votes, was the second-worst impediment, following by race relations with 41, according to an Arthur Andersen poll.

        • $13 million: The minimum estimate of wages lost by Comair pilots during their 89-day pilot strike.

        • $320 million: The minimum estimate of revenues lost by Delta Air Lines as a result of the strike at subsidiary Comair.

        • $16,000/$21,000: Annual salary for a first-year Comair pilot before and after the strike.

        • 13,000: Jobs eliminated by Delta Air Lines in response to the effects of the Sept. 11 attacks.

        • 11,000: Delta jobs eliminated through voluntary programs such as leaves, retirements and severances.

        • 120,316: Pounds of thrust generated by GE90-115B engine, a world's record, during initial testing of the huge new engine at GE Aircraft Engines' Peebles test facility in November.

        • 28 million: Amount of dollars rival Diebold Inc. paid to acquire assets of Hamilton's former Mosler Inc., which shut down suddenly in August after 134 years of operation — putting 1,500 out of work.

        • $49 million: Amount that Procter & Gamble Co. agreed to pay to settle a lawsuit by shareholders claiming that the company's management misled them just before an earnings and stock crash in March 2000.

        • 75 million: The number of HGTV subscribers by end of 2001 — a 14 percent increase from the 66 million subscribers in January 2001. HGTV is the category cable television network owned by the Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co.

Tristate gropes to regain economic footing
Big year for big names
Interest rate cuts unprecedented
Tristate by the numbers
Comair still on comeback
Directions changed for local start-ups in 2001
Two local firms maintain pace
Business Notes
Entrepreneurs
Listings of stocks, mutual funds to expand