How much are the Cincinnati Reds worth? Depends on whom you ask.

If you ask the researchers at Forbes magazine, the answer is $245 million, or 10 percent more than last year.

If you ask Reds owner Carl Lindner, the answer is uncertain, because he won't comment publicly.

But it's probably safe to say he believes the team is worth less than the Forbes estimate.

The club's Lindner-led ownership group has taken a conservative view of the Reds' finances, counting on the balance sheet anything from stadium contributions to deferred payroll to a loan to buy the team.

The Forbes estimate doesn't include much of that debt.

The Reds are trying to abide by Major League Baseball debt rules, which have gotten more stringent in the past several years.

Forbes says the Reds' total debt is 27 percent of their value.

Lindner and other small-market owners have called rising debt levels across baseball a growing problem.

Lindner and other owners bought the controlling stake in the team from Marge Schott for $67 million in 1999.

P&G still dealing

A year after Procter & Gamble Co. announced a $30 million investment that would help a minority-owned Dayton company build a manufacturing plant in Cincinnati's empowerment zone, the companies still are putting finishing touches on the deal.

Construction hasn't started on the plant for Valu-Pac, which will be a new division of CDO Technologies. P&G will contribute with a contract for Valu-Pac to fill bottles of Olay Body Wash.

Originally, the companies hoped to open the plant by mid-2004, employing up to 200 people from low-income neighborhoods.

Icy Williams, associate director of supplier diversity at P&G, said she was confident the deal would happen but wouldn't comment further.

Candle-Lite's smokin'

Making store-brand candles for the world's biggest company has become a way of life for Candle-Lite in Blue Ash.

Wal-Mart Stores, the $245 billion retail goliath, has become famous for constantly demanding lower prices, more capacity and faster delivery from its suppliers.

Or infamous, some suppliers might say. Wal-Mart has earned criticism for forcing suppliers to sacrifice jobs and profit margins to get their products on Wal-Mart shelves.

But Mark Cunningham, a vice president of sales at Candle-Lite owner Lancaster Colony who handles the Wal-Mart account, doesn't see it that way. Every retailer wants lower prices every year, he said.

"They're just bigger, and they're growing," he said.

"But we've grown concurrently with them. They've helped spur our growth.

"They force suppliers like ourselves to look for ways to increase our capacity. And we have to establish what is the price point to generate this sale."

Candle-Lite won Wal-Mart's vendor award for the fourth quarter in the candle division, in part because it helped fill an order to 3,000 stores in less than 30 days.

The company, which has 800 employees, also met rigorous standards for percentage of products sold before the Christmas season, with about 90 percent gone from store shelves before Dec. 25, Cunningham said.

Scott Munnecke, a Wal-Mart buyer dealing with Candle-Lite, said it consistently meets Wal-Mart's top specification: Lower prices every year.

"Candle-Lite has spent a lot of time improving their quality at still an incredibly low price," he said.

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com