Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 36

2E DETROIT FREE PRESSTUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1991 Eastern European nations setting up stock exchanges tf e- I I and "The Jetsons" is branching by Jonathan Lynn Reuters VIENNA, Austria Suddenly, stock markets are blooming in Eastern Europe. Reforming communist countries are pushing ahead with plans to set up exchanges as their governments sell off state-owned companies. By the end of the year, active or limited stock markets should be under way in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia and Hungary have already opened exchanges. Activity will be slight by Western standards, with only a few stocks listed initially.

But the new markets will still be vital. "A capital market is an essential part of a market economy and has to start somewhere," said Konrad Rum-pold, management board member of Oesterreicnische Laenderbank AG. Poland, which is the pace-setter in reforming Eastern Europe, plans to start trading shares April 16 in the former headquarters of the Communist Party. The Polish exchange will be modeled on the one in Lyons, France, which will help set it up and train staff. Wieslaw Rozlucki, a privatization ministry official in Poland, said his government is under pressure to open the market from the management and shareholders of five medium-sized companies that have been privatized.

Additional government-owned companies in Poland, including the national airline LOT, are to be privatized over the next few months, and Witold Treciakowski, chairman of the government's Economic Council, said 8,000 companies will will be added over five years. Czechoslovakia is proceeding more cautiously. Because of rivalry between Czechs and Slovaks, the country will get two exchanges, one in Prague and one in the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Czech Privatization Minister To-mas Jezek said the Prague exchange, being helped by Canadian experts, will start trial operations this year, and open formally in January 1992. Slovak bankers hope to open the Bratislava exchange in the second half of this year.

Czechoslovakia is planning to give people a stake in privatized companies by issuing adult citizens with vouchers that can be swapped for stock. About 20 to 30 percent of shares will be transferred in this way. The Soviet Union plans to open stock exchanges in Moscow and Leningrad later this month. Business on the Hungarian stock exchange in Budapest is, by local standards, booming. Trading volume so far this year has been equal to about $30 million.

Bible stories to video shopping list religious adventures The influx of immigrants from Central and South America has brought many Catholics into the United States. And hard economic times always breed religious fervor. Then there is the aging of the baby boomer. Many fell away from the church in the 1960s. Distribution for the videos has been expanded from direct mail and religious bookstores to general-interest bookstores and mass merchants like Wal-Mart, Kmart and Caldor.

Hanna-Barbera isn't alone in preaching biblical takeoffs. Blockbuster Video, the nation's largest video retailer, carries close to 30 religious titles for kids. Sales of children's books with spiritual themes also are on the rise. Hugh Lally, promotions director at the Paul-ist Press in Ramsey, reports that sales of children's titles have gone up 50 percent in the past three years. Bookstores offer a bounty of choices.

A shopper looking for the story of Noah's ark can choose an illustrated book from Doubleday or a pop-out version from Dover. Antioch Publishing Co. in Yellow Springs, Ohio, has the story in its Little Treasures Series, a collection of miniature books with the added bonus of a prize inside for trading!" exclaim the books' covers). And there are shelves of illustrated Bibles, comics and coloring books with Noah, his horde of animals and the flood. Isuzu expects loss, blames economies in Japan, U.S.

Trade agreement with Mexico could aid Michigan, study says pan has been falling rapidly due to a decline in capital investment by Japanese trucking companies," said Stephen Marvin, an analyst for Jardine Fleming Securities in Tokyo. Isuzu is Japan's second-largest truck maker and sixth-largest automaker. General Motors Isuzu's largest shareholder with a 37.5-percent stake, would have received $6.9 million in dividends had the usual dividend been paid, an Isuzu spokesman said. Marvin said any dividend paid to GM would have been "insignificant in terms of its policy on equity toward Isuzu." Isuzu is now forecasting a net loss of $73.5 million for the current fiscal year, which ends in October. Last fiscal year, the company posted net profits of $56.2 million.

FOREIGN EXCHANGE FGN. CURRENCY DOLLAR IN IN DOLLARS FGN. CURRENCY The maker of "The Flintstones," out into religious cartoons. Parents add by Jon Berry Adweek's Marketing Week Religious publishers and show biz dynamos like Hanna-Barbera creator of the Flintstones, the Jetsons and Yogi Bear are putting the Bible into adventure-filled books and videos. AJ i.J I nJI parents are buy ing.

This is not a trend that was anticipated. In tht Yogi Bear mid-h 's. whv.ii Joe Barbera suggested puttu.a Jie Bible into cartoon form, his Hollywood peers didn't think he had a prayer. "The typical response was, 'The Bible? NCR earnings may BY BART ZIEGLER Associated Press NEW YORK NCR Corp. is expected to report disappointing first-quarter earnings next week, industry analysts said Monday, putting added pressure on the computer maker to negotiate an end to its takeover fight with While not commenting directly on the expected figures, NCR Chairman Charles Exley Jr.

admitted Monday that a poorer-than-anticipated profit could undermine his bargaining position with the telephone company and his own shareholdt. In an attempt to decrease the attractiveness of takeover offer, Exley has told shareholders NCR can boost its stock price above offering price through increased earnings in coming quarters. "We have to show earnings power" to justify this position, Exley said in a telephone interview. Exley did say that if his company expected earnings to be sharply lower than estimates by stock analysts, it would have said so in advance. Three weeks ago, International Business Machines Corp.

announced BUSINESS PEOPLE Batts elected CEO Derek Batts has been elected president and chief executive officer of Union Heritage Capital Management Detroit, the state's Only minority-owned registered investment advisory firm, specializing exclusively in equity and fixed income management. Batts was vice president and chief financial officer of consulting firm Kenner, Batts Associates Inc. Other officers of Union Heritage are vice presidents Vincent Bren-nan and Jeffrey Egan, secretary-treasurer Leonard Mungo and portfolio manager James Bashaw. Dennis Dowdell has been appointed corporate vice president of human resources for Henry Ford Health System (HFHS). His responsibilities include development of a human resources strategic plan, compensation and benefits planning, and the development of a systemwide affirmative action-equal employment opportunity plan.

Dowdell will also supervise organizational development and training, human resources quality initiatives and employment. He joins HFHS from American National Can Greenwich, where he was vice president of human resources for the Performance Plastics Division. ALSO APPOINTED: Kent Darragh to vice president of operations, Cadillac Plastic and Chemical Troy. George Caralis to president, Grace Hospital, Detroit. Denise Pezold to marketing assistant, Palace of Auburn Hills.

David Gaitley to vice president of the insurance brokerage firm Rollins Burdick Hunter of Michigan Detroit, Henry DeVries to chief executive officer, Bon Secours of Michigan Healthcare System Grosse Pointe. 'vL left, Cartoon maker carries Why would that work? It's not a licensed product, like Care Bears or recalls Wendy Moss, an executive with Hanna-Barbera Home Video in Los Angeles. But Barbera persisted. "Religion plays an important part in his life," says Moss. And it seems to have struck a nerve in others as well.

More than two million copies have been sold of the Greatest Adventure line, a 10-title series of 30-minute videos. At $14.95 apiece, the total take exceeds $30 million. Titles include "The Easter Story," "Noah's Ark" and "The Story of Moses." Demographers say a combination ot trends is behind the soul-filling sales. affect takeover bid that its first-quarter profit would be about half of that estimated by analysts, a bombshell that caused its stock price to slide. "So many computer companies have indicated the March (first) quarter will be weak, so by implication we can assume that NCR's March quarter will be weak," said analyst Jay Stevens of Dean Witter Reynolds Inc.

Stevens said he expected NCR would not meet his estimate of a profit of about $36 million, or 56 cents a share, for the quarter ended March 31. In last year's first quarter, NCR earned $52 million, or 73 cents a share, on revenues of $1.27 billion. In addition to the computer industry slump, NCR faces the added drain of its takeover defenses, including fees to legal and financial advisers and full-page newspaper ads soliciting shareholder loyalty. NCR told analysts it spent $10 million to $15 million in the fourth quarter on takeover-related expenses. Analyst Rick Martin of Prudential Securities Inc.

said he expected that the costs were much steeper in the first quarter. of Union Heritage Batts DeVries Dowdell Darragh Pezold Caralis Also Worth Noting: The following trustees have been elected to fill vacancies on the board of New Detroit Rod Zimmerman, vice president and general manager of WWJWJOI radio; David Campbell, president and CEO of the Detroit Medical Center; Archbishop Adam Maida of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit; and Samuel Logan, vice president and general manager of the Michigan Chronicle. Compiled by Harriet Monticello 7 fgj 1 mm. Li 1 uhi Free Press wire services TOKYO Isuzu Motors Ltd. expects to post a net loss of $36.8 million for the six months that end April 30 and has canceled payment of dividends to shareholders for the period, the company said Monday.

Isuzu has paid semiannual dividends of 2 cents per share for the past two years. Even when they are recording large profits, Japanese companies typically pay much lower dividends than do U.S. firms. The company cited slower growth of the Japanese economy as well as a stagnant U.S. economy for the loss.

In December, Isuzu had projected it would record net profits of $22.1 million for the November 1990 to April 1991 period. One industry analyst said a decline in Japanese demand for trucks was the main factor behind Isuzu's poor performance, with poor sales in the United States playing only a secondary role. "Commercial truck demand in Ja- States do better job of challenging false ads, study suggests Reuters Washington State officials do a better job than the U.S. government in challenging false advertisements, and when it does act, Washington is lax in settling cases, a new study said Monday. "It is shocking that the federal government is not able to protect the public from dishonest advertising as well as state agencies," said Bruce Silverglade, director of legal affairs for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which released the study.

To fix the problem, Congress must expand the Federal Trade Commission's power to regulate advertising, said the report. Commission officials defended their record and said the study did not provide a fair comparison. "It's apples and oranges. They are comparing cases against individual furniture stores for deceptive pricing with the cases we bring against large national advertisers," said Lee Peeler, FTC associate director for advertising practices. But Silverglade said his group tried to avoid local cases in the study, which found the FTC acted on 29 deceptive ads in 1990, compared with 48 cases brought by states.

It got fines only 21 percent of the time, compared with 75 percent at the state level. Four of five times when uk; FTC and states acted on the same ad the FTC took longer to resolve the issue and got smaller penalties. The differences were due in part to legal restrictions that allow the FTC to assess fines only under limited conditions, according to the study and the FTC. Even with the tight rules, the FTC collected $2.8 million on advertising cases in 1990, compared with $2.1 million by the states, Peeler said. To improve enforcement, the group asked Congress to set deadlines on how long the FTC could consider cases, streamline investigation procedures and provide the agency with authority to routinely assess fines against deceptive ads.

By John Flesher Associated Press Washington A free-trade agreement with Mexico could produce a net gain of more than 6,300 nonfarming jobs in Michigan more than in any other state by the turn of the century, a study says. Critics have warned that the proposed pact would unleash a stream of U.S. manufacturing companies across the border in search of cheap labor. The UAW opposes an agreement, fearing it would eliminate well-paid automaking jobs. But Clopper Almon, an economics professor at the University of Maryland who conducted the study, said an agreement would boost demand for U.S.

products in Mexico, thereby creating more manufacturing jobs than would be lost through company relocation. "Most Mexicans I talked to said they'd love to import cars from the United States," Almon said Monday. Removing Mexican barriers to U.S. vehicles would give Mexican consumers a bigger variety to choose from. "What we're talking about is getting down the Mexican tariff walls so U.S.

industry can sell to Mexico," he said. Despite improvements in recent years, the Mexicans still levy tariffs on U.S. goods three times as high as reciprocal U.S. tariffs. The study, commissioned by the Department of Labor, was complet Eastern German firms BY MARK FRITZ Associated Press BERLIN For sale: Used country, sea view.

Needs work. Good fixer-upper for right buyer. Must sell. No reasonable offer refused. Everything, as they say, must go.

The increasingly anxious effort to lure investors into the economic swampland that is eastern Germany hasn't quite come down to a single want ad. But it's getting there. The agency trying to unload the nuclear plants, ice cream parlors, pubs, publishers and pickle makers is putting a new marketing spin on its pitch to adventurous investors. For 320 marks ($192 U.S.), buyers willing to sink some cash into Germany's less-desirable district can pick up a slick catalog that lists all 6,000 enterprises on the block. The Treuhandanstalt, the beleaguered public agency that is the official clearinghouse of the former nation, unveiled the catalog Monday with rules meant to make it easier for small-time investors to buy into east Germany.

Birgit Breuel, a member of the agency's management board, said the catalog was cooked up so "we can sell faster and better." What once was the strongest economy in the old Soviet bloc has now been reduced to 600 crisp pages of sales pitches. ed last fall but adjusted in February and March to correct errors. Almon said he was a strong supporter of a free-trade pact. The Bush administration is lobbying Congress for authority to conduct the negotiations on a so-called fast track, which would require the House and Senate to vote the agreement up or down without amendments. Manufacturing and agriculture are the segments of the U.S.

economy that would benefit most from a free-trade agreement, the study concluded. However, its estimates of jobs gained and lost did not include agricultural employment. If the agreement resulted in removal of Mexico's tariffs and other barriers to U.S. products, Michigan would gain an estimated 6,342 jobs within five years of its implementation, the study said. If the pact removed the tariffs but not other barriers, the state's net employment gain would be 2,611 jobs, it said.

One reason for the difference is that the non-tariff barriers include a Mexican licensing requirement restricting the sale there of U.S. cars not assembled in Mexico. Another heavy industrial state, Ohio, placed second with a net gain of 5,575 jobs with all tariffs and barriers removed and 2,788 jobs with only tariffs removed. Oregon placed third, Indiana fourth and California fifth. offered to investors The agency also saiu is torming a worldwide computer data bank that potential investors can dial into for details on which coal mine or underwear factory to buy.

For the right price often just the cost of coming up with a good idea to make it profitable the savvy investor can suddenly become a book publisher, bridge builder, house painter, picture framer or parquet floor manufacturer. You can get into the business of sawmills, seaports, airports, air guns, hunting guns, "humane slaughtering equipment," meat processors, leather processors and data processors. You can buy factories that build ships, yachts, bicycles, motorcycles, fire engines and diesel engines. Even East Germany's massive nuclear plant complex in Greifswald is listed, although the government said its pre-Chernobyl, Soviet-built reactors will never be allowed to operate. The firms listed represent the bulk of the 8,000 companies that were once centrally run by the former Communist government.

Few are healthy, most are overstaffed and many are so outmoded and run-down that they will probably fold. Breuel said the 2,000 companies not listed are "in the Treuhand pipeline," meaning they are in various stages of being taken over or considered by investors. Moa. Fri. Mm.

Frl. f-Argent .000103 .000103 9700.3 9700.3 Australia .7845 .7830 1.2747 1.2771 Austria .0842 .0853 11.87 11.73 c-Belgium .0288 .0292 34.68 34.27 Brazil .0041 .0040 245.00 249.00 Britain 1.7680 1.7735 .5656 .5639 30dayfwd 1.7591 1.7645 .5685 .5667 60-day fwd 1.7504 1.7552 .5713 .5697 90iayfwd 1.7430 1.7480 .5737 .5721 Canada .8668 .8669 1.1537 1.1535 30dayfwd .8642 .8644 1.1572 1.1569 60-day fwd .8618 .8619 1.1604 1.1602 9(Wayfwd .8597 .8598 1.1632 1.1630 y-Chile .002933 .002917 341.00 342.84 Colombia .001667 .001706 600.00 586.00 Denmark .1546 .1562 6.4680 6.4025 i-Ecudr .001035 .001035 966.00 966.00 ECU 1.2197 1.2357 .8199 .8093 d-Egypt .3146 .3143 3.1785 3.1815 Finland .2524 .2538 3.9620 3.9400 France .1752 .1772 5.7080 5.6430 Germany .5920 .5948 1.6892 1.6812 3(klayfwd .5906 .5934 1.6932 1.6852 WMayfwd .5890 .5919 1.6977 1.6896 90-day fwd .5876 .5905 1.7017 1.6935 Greece .005466 .005490 182.95 182.15 Hong Kong .1283 .1283 7.7938 7.7955 y-India .0503 .0506 19.881 19.762 Indnsia .000526 .000526 1903.02 1903.02 Ireland 1.5840 1.5925 .6313 .6279 Israel .4494 .4494 2.2251 2.2251 Italy .000797 .000808 1255.30 1238.00 Japan .007294 .007337 137.10 136.30 30-day fwd .007282 .007325 137.33 136.51 WWayfwd .007276 .007315 137.44 136.70 9Mayfwd .007263 .007308 137.69 136.83 Jordan 1.5029 1.5029 .66540 .66540 Lebanon .001060 .001060 943.00 943.00 Malaysia .3651 .3645 2.7388 2.7435 i-Mexko .000335 .000335 2984.01 2984.01 Nethrlnds .5259 .5323 1.9015 1.8786 N.Zealand .5925 .5922 1.6877 1.6886 Norway .1522 .1540 6.5685 6.4950 Pakistan .0439 .0439 22.78 22.78 y-Peru (New Sol) 1.7544 1.7809 .57000 .56000 i-Philpins .0368 .0368 27.20 27.20 Portugal .006777 .006826 147.55 146.50 Saudi Arab .2667 .2667 3.7495 3.7500 Singapore .5661 .5682 1.7665 1.7600 So. Korea .001377 .001378 726.10 725.60 So. Africa .3700 .3741 2.7030 2.6730 Spain .009602 .009713 104.15 102.95 Sweden .1644 .1657 6.0820 6.0350 Switierlnd .6982 .7062 1.4322 1.4160 30-day fwd .6969 .7049 1.4350 1.4187 60ay fwd .6956 .7035 1.4377 1.4215 00-day fwd .6944 .7024 1.4401 1.4236 Taiwan .0365 27.42 27.42 Thailand .03906 .03906 25.60 25.60 Turkey .000270 .000270 3705.01 3703.02 U.A.E. .2723 .2723 3.6727 3.6727 f-Uruguay .000563 .000563 1775.00 1775.00 i-Venniel .0183 .0183 54.6300 54.5800 Yugoslav .06658 .06460 15.02 15.48 ECU: European Currency Unit, a basket of European currencies.

The Federal Reserve Board's index of the value of the dollar against 10 other currencies weighted on the basis of trade was 90.83 Monday, up 0.39 points or 0.43 percent from Friday's 90.44. A year ago the Index was 93.81. Late closing prices as of 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time from Telerate Systems and other sources. c-commerclal rate, d-free market rate, f-flnandal rate, y-offlciat rate, z-floatlng rate, r-revlsed.

AP-DS-04-08-91 I538EDT For used car appraisals, call: 1-9OM-0QO7 Each call costs $2150 a minute. No truck or four-wheel vehicles..