Byline: By armand limnande section: Section mm; Column 0; T: Men's Fashion Magazine; Pg. 76 Length
COMPANY: GENERAL ELECTRIC CO (57%); CNINSURE INC (63%) TICKER
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COMPANY: GENERAL ELECTRIC CO (57%); CNINSURE INC (63%) TICKER: GNEA (AMS) (57%); GNE (PAR) (57%); GEC (LSE) (57%); GEB (BRU) (57%); GE (NYSE) (57%); CISG (NASDAQ) (63%) INDUSTRY: NAICS336412 AIRCRAFT ENGINE & ENGINE PARTS MANUFACTURING (57%); NAICS335222 HOUSEHOLD REFRIGERATOR & HOME FREEZER MANUFACTURING (57%); NAICS335211 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & HOUSEHOLD FAN MANUFACTURING (57%); SIC3724 AIRCRAFT ENGINES & ENGINE PARTS (57%); SIC3634 ELECTRIC HOUSEWARES & FANS (57%) PERSON: VLADIMIR PUTIN (96%); JACK WELCH (72%) GEOGRAPHIC: RUSSIA (94%); EUROPE (79%); WESTERN EUROPE (51%) LOAD-DATE: March 2, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: PHOTO: One author says Vladimir V. Putin has led Russia to ''rough, brutal, and cheerful capitalism.'' (PHOTOGRAPH BY MAXIM MARMUR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE -- GETTY IMAGES) PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1032 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final At the Plaza, Restoring Life Lived Luxuriously BYLINE: By ANTHONY RAMIREZ SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 32 LENGTH: 692 words Let's say somebody has bought a famous but slightly dilapidated property and spent a lot of time and money fixing it. The property is really famous: F. Scott Fitzgerald set scenes from his most celebrated novel there, Alfred Hitchcock filmed a scene from one of his most acclaimed movies there, and countless debutantes reached the summit of their debutantehood there. What to do to show it off? If you are the El-Ad Group of Israel, the latest owner of the Plaza Hotel, the 100-year-old landmark facing Central Park South and Grand Army Plaza, you invite reporters from several nations on Saturday to a deluxe tour and a news conference, complete with coffee served by white-gloved butlers. Miki Naftali, the chief executive officer of El-Ad, said the company had spent $400 million over two and a half years to renovate the Plaza. Combined with the $675 million spent to buy the hotel in 2004, this means the company has spent more than the gross domestic product of Monaco on the famed landmark. So it was with evident pride, and no detectable buyer's remorse, that Mr. Naftali repeatedly called the Plaza ''this great castle on the park.'' But like any ancient castle, the Plaza was expensive to fix, Mr. Naftali said in an interview. And not all of it is done. The Oak Bar, for example, where Cary Grant was kidnapped by international spies in Hitchcock's ''North by Northwest,'' won't be finished until late spring. The biggest bill was $30 million to repair a leaking roof, Mr. Naftali said. A further $16 million was spent to restore and add kitchen facilities to the Grand Ballroom, one of the rich man's wonders that compelled Fitzgerald to set scenes from ''The Great Gatsby'' in the hotel. And $15 million was spent on the Palm Court, where many New Yorkers of a certain age have splurged on or have been treated to a Sunday brunch that would delight Epicurus and give Midas pause. The 800-room hotel closed three years ago for renovations. Now that it has reopened, only 130 rooms remain as hotel rooms, which were shown off to reporters on Saturday. Women in black dresses and high heels led reporters from room to room, each with high-thread-count linen and small soaps in dishes. There are flat-screen television sets. There is a detachable wireless gizmo the size of a book that controls the TV, the lights, the heat and other comforts. The bathroom faucets are 24-karat gold. The tab for the hotel rooms begins at $1,000 a night. The hotel is already taking guests. But the majority of the space in the old hotel -- about 60 percent -- has been converted to 181 luxury condominiums. All have sold, Mr. Naftali said, except for one on the second floor that is being used as a temporary construction office. The most expensive condo is one that El-Ad never designed, Mr. Naftali said. The buyer bought four units and combined them into one giant 11,000-square-foot mansion above Central Park. Mr. Naftali, his voice dropping to a sommelier's whisper, declined to disclose the sale price. Bob and Suzanne Chute of Naples, Fla., are a hint of how lofty the game is at the Plaza these days. They bought, sight unseen, a three-bedroom condo for $13.86 million. ''We saw a computer thing and they could show you what it looked like if you were looking out the window,'' said Mr. Chute, 64, an entrepreneur who owns several companies and whose deep, rich tan indicates a life spent near the Equator. The couple don't usually buy with so little information, they said. ''But we had faith in what the people were telling us,'' said Mrs. Chute, 61, who describes herself as ''just a wife.'' The couple closed on the condo on Friday, and Sunday morning they plan to meet with their interior decorator. How does it feel to own a Plaza condo? ''We are psyched,'' Mr. Chute said. ''We are so psyched.'' On Saturday, the couple were having their first breakfast at the Palm Court, where eggs Benedict costs $30. Breakfast doesn't come with condo ownership, the couple acknowledged. When told that a glass of orange juice costs $12, the couple smiled. ''One thing we're not big at is looking at the prices,'' Mr. Chute said.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1033 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final New Line's 40 Years of Reaching Brows High and Low BYLINE: By A. O. SCOTT SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Arts and Leisure Desk; FILM; Pg. 7 LENGTH: 668 words Four years ago, on the night before the Academy Awards, I found myself at the Beverly Hills home of Bob Shaye, the founder and co-chairman of New Line Cinema. The annual New Line party chez Shaye was a popular stop on the pre-Oscars festivity circuit, and to an outsider the scene seemed to fit every stereotype of Hollywood power and the aspiration to it. There was the blue-chip contemporary art on the walls (''Is that a real Francis Bacon?'' I heard someone ask); the panoramic views of the Los Angeles basin and the San Fernando Valley; the Wolfgang Puck-catered dinner; the endless parade of agents, executives, movie stars and aspirants to influence and fame. Wasn't that Richard Parsons of Time Warner? Is she Paris Hilton? Is that the guy who used to be on that TV show? And that must be his agent. It was like something from ''The Player,'' speaking of New Line releases. This impression, however, was a bit misleading. Yes, it's true that in February 2004, New Line Cinema was on top of the world, and Mr. Shaye and his colleagues, including his co-chairman, Michael Lynne, were riding high. The night after the party, to no one's particular surprise, ''The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King'' swept every category in which it was nominated, collecting 11 Oscars, among them best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay. But New Line was hardly a typical blockbuster factory, the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy was not a typical franchise, and Bob Shaye was far from a standard studio boss. And that is why New Line -- which ceased to operate as a full-fledged studio on Thursday, when Time Warner announced that it would be folded into Warner Brothers and Mr. Shaye and Mr. Lynne would depart -- will be missed. New Line was not a specialty division or a genre label. It went highbrow and low, sometimes playing for the niches and sometimes for the mass audience. It was an oddity and an anomaly. Last year, in commemoration of its 40th anniversary, New Line put together a DVD sampler of some of its more memorable productions. It was handsomely bound and presented, but the impression was less of a catalog of masterpieces than a collection of betting slips, a compendium of gambles, hunches and long shots. ''The Lord of the Rings'' was the most successful of these. (Others included ''Elf,''''Blow'' and the ''Austin Powers'' trilogy.) No other studio was willing to sink several hundred million dollars into the simultaneous production of three movies directed by an obscure New Zealander named Peter Jackson. And when New Line did just that, there were a lot of smirks and raised eyebrows in Hollywood. As perhaps there are now, since schadenfreude is as essential to the health of the Hollywood body politic as Diet Coke. The triumph of the ''Rings'' was followed by a long losing streak, exacerbated by messy litigation over the spoils and the future of the Tolkien franchise. Mr. Shaye decided to dabble in directing, turning out a ghastly kiddie- magic movie called ''The Last Mimzy.'' It began to seem as if New Line's days were numbered. It's not for me to argue the merits of the decision to snuff out New Line's independence. The dissolution of one corporate entity by another is rarely an occasion for sentiment, except perhaps among stockholders. But New Line Cinema was a link between the smooth, conglomerated present and a gamier, more entrepreneurial past. Mr. Shaye may live like Hollywood royalty, but his roots are in New York retail and in the nervy, disreputable world of grindhouses and exploitation pictures. He was the man who made the 1930s drug-scare propaganda movie ''Reefer Madness'' into a staple of the late-'60s campus counterculture. He picked up, on the cheap, North American rights to Bruce Lee movies, and he helped turn John Waters's ''Pink Flamingos'' into a cult classic. And let's not forget Freddy Krueger of the ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' series, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Not a bad art collection, after all.
Cast and crew members holding the 11 Oscars won in 2004 by the New Line film ''The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,'' the final installment in the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy.(PHOTOGRAPH BY JOE CAVARETTA/ASSOCIATED PRESS) Mike Myers in New Line's ''Austin Powers in Goldmember.''(PHOTOGRAPH BY NEW LINE CINEMA) Will Ferrell, the star of the New Line comedy ''Elf.''(PHOTOGRAPH BY ALAN MARKFIELD/NEW LINE PRODUCTIONS)(pg. B13) PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1034 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final New Line's Leaders Are Ousted as Warner Studio Takes Control BYLINE: By BROOKS BARNES SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 4 LENGTH: 505 words DATELINE: LOS ANGELES Time Warner announced Thursday that New Line Cinema, one of its marquee movie studios, would become a unit of Warner Brothers, ceasing to operate as a full-service, stand-alone unit. In the process, New Line will shed an unspecified but substantial number of its 600 employees, including Robert Shaye, the studio's founder, and his co-chairman, Michael Lynne. New Line, which Mr. Shaye founded in New York in 1967, became famous for promoting the work of independent directors while minting box-office gold like the ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' series and later the ''Lord of the Rings'' trilogy. In recent years, the studio had been battered by poorly performing movies and legal wrangling over ''Lord of the Rings.'' The consolidation -- the first far-reaching decision by Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner's new chief executive -- could double New Line's earnings, according to analysts. The company said it expected to record a ''fairly sizable'' revamping charge tied to discontinuing some operations at New Line in 2008, and cautioned that earnings would not reflect the full benefit until 2010. ''We are moving quickly to improve our business performance and financial returns,'' said Mr. Bewkes, who is under pressure to lift Time Warner's share price. Its shares have recently traded at about $16. In addition to cutting costs, another reason behind the move was the increasing importance of the international box office, Mr. Bewkes said. New Line has largely relied on the advance sale of foreign rights to bankroll its pictures. But Mr. Bewkes said that strategy leaves too much money on the table. ''The Golden Compass,'' the recent fantasy epic starring Nicole Kidman, is a prime example. The movie was a hit overseas, generating some $260 million in ticket sales, but New Line had sold off most of the foreign rights. Mr. Bewkes will now decide what to do with the company's two other boutique movie studios, Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures. While it had struggled, New Line was hardly moribund. It is releasing the movie version of ''Sex and the City'' this spring and recently resolved its legal dispute with the director Peter Jackson, clearing the path for him to make ''The Hobbit.'' Indeed, the consolidation may be as much about egos as economics. Mr. Shaye and Mr. Lynne -- whose aggressive style and loyalty to offbeat projects like ''The Last Mimzy'' have raised eyebrows -- have long resisted combining New Line with Warner Brothers, leading to a running soap opera for the company. Mr. Shaye, 68, and Mr. Lynne, 66, declined to be interviewed. In an internal memorandum, they said they intended to remain ''actively involved in the industry in an entrepreneurial capacity.'' Barry M. Meyer, chairman of Warner Brothers, and Alan F. Horn, the studio's president, also declined to comment. In an internal memo, they wrote, ''We want to take our time to make sure that we understand New Line's business and properly align this valuable asset that's now affiliated with the studio.'' URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: MOVIE INDUSTRY (91%); FILM (90%); MOVIES & SOUND RECORDING SECTOR PERFORMANCE (90%); ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS (90%); COMPANY EARNINGS (90%); MOVIE & VIDEO PRODUCTION (90%); MOVIE & VIDEO DISTRIBUTION (89%); EXECUTIVE MOVES (78%); BOARDS OF DIRECTORS (76%); COMPANY STRATEGY (73%); TICKET SALES (70%); INDUSTRY ANALYSTS (67%); SECURITIES TRADING (64%) COMPANY: TIME WARNER INC (91%); NEW LINE CINEMA CORP (90%) TICKER: TWX (NYSE) (91%); TWX (LSE) (91%) INDUSTRY: NAICS518111 INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (91%); NAICS517510 CABLE & OTHER PROGRAM DISTRIBUTION (91%); NAICS512110 MOTION PICTURE & VIDEO PRODUCTION (91%); NAICS517110 WIRED TELECOMMUNICATIONS CARRIERS (91%) PERSON: JEFF BEWKES (84%); NICOLE KIDMAN (53%) GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, USA (90%) UNITED STATES (90%) LOAD-DATE: February 29, 2008 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company 1035 of 1231 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Clinton's Efforts on Ethanol Overlap Her Husband's Interests BYLINE: By MIKE McINTIRE SECTION: Section A; Column 0; National Desk; Pg. 23 LENGTH: 1709 words To big rounds of applause, three of the world's richest men -- Richard Branson, Ronald W. Burkle and Vinod Khosla -- trooped onto a New York ballroom stage with former President Bill Clinton to pledge support for renewable energy projects to combat global warming and create jobs. It was September 2006, and the Clinton Global Initiative, the annual star-studded networking event for philanthropists and investors, had generated commitments to spend billions on ethanol and other alternative fuels. Cast as good works, many were also investments by businessmen hoping for a profit. And sitting in the audience was an influential public official who had also taken an active interest in renewable sources of fuel: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Several months earlier, Mrs. Clinton had sponsored legislation to provide billions in new federal incentives for ethanol, and, especially in her home state of New York, she has worked to foster a business climate that favors the sort of ethanol investments pursued by her husband's friends and her political supporters. One potential beneficiary is the Yucaipa Companies, a private equity firm where Mr. Clinton has been a senior adviser and whose founder, Mr. Burkle, has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Mrs. Clinton's campaigns. Yucaipa has invested millions in Cilion Inc. -- a start-up venture also backed by Mr. Branson, the British entrepreneur, and Mr. Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist -- that is building seven ethanol plants around the country. Two are in upstate New York. A Cilion executive said Mrs. Clinton's office had been helpful to the company as it pursued its New York projects. More broadly, by steering federal money, organizing investor forums and offering the services of her staff, she has helped turn the upstate region into an incubator for ventures like Cilion's, while providing a useful showcase for her energy proposals on the campaign trail. Certainly Mrs. Clinton is doing what would be expected of a senator trying to stimulate a sagging rural economy in her home state, not to mention a presidential candidate mindful of the importance of ethanol in corn-producing places like Iowa. But her actions take on an added dimension when they intersect with Mr. Clinton's philanthropic and profit-making endeavors, which have periodically raised questions as Mrs. Clinton seeks the Democratic nomination for president. Yucaipa's partnership with the rulers of Dubai and its investment in a Chinese media company drew attention to Mr. Clinton's connection to the fund when his wife was preparing her presidential run last year. In December, aides to Mr. Clinton said he was taking steps to end his relationship with Yucaipa to avoid potential conflicts of interest or political imbroglios for his wife, should she become the Democratic nominee. Representatives of the Clintons declined repeated requests for comment that included a detailed set of questions submitted to Mrs. Clinton's campaign more than a week ago. Because Mr. Burkle's Yucaipa funds are private, and the Clintons have refused to release their tax returns, details of Yucaipa's investments and Mr. Clinton's potential to profit from them are not publicly available. Last year, after Mr. Clinton published a book on philanthropy that extols the virtues of investing in renewable energy and contains a reference to Cilion, a spokesman for the former president told New York magazine that he consulted for Yucaipa on renewable energy investments but was not involved in Cilion. On Wednesday, a spokesman for Yucaipa declined to say how much it had invested in Cilion, but said it amounted to less than 5 percent of the company's equity -- small by Yucaipa standards, but enough for it to be represented on Cilion's board. He said Mr. Clinton did not stand to profit from Yucaipa's investment in Cilion. Under an agreement with Mr. Burkle in 2002, Mr. Clinton was to provide advice and find investment opportunities for several domestic and foreign funds in Yucaipa's portfolio, and would receive a share of the profits from those funds. On a financial disclosure report that Mrs. Clinton filed as a presidential candidate last year, Mr. Clinton listed several direct investments through Yucaipa, including one in a Brazilian sugar-cane ethanol company founded by Mr. Khosla, but Cilion was not among them. Mrs. Clinton is far from alone in proposing increased federal incentives for renewable energy -- her opponent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, backs even greater spending on biofuels -- and not all of her actions on ethanol would benefit the interests of Mr. Clinton and his associates. She has voted to preserve a tariff on Brazilian ethanol imports, which helps domestic ethanol producers but works against investors in Brazilian facilities. In fact, Mrs. Clinton had long opposed ethanol subsidies, but in May 2006, she switched gears and introduced a bill to create a $50 billion ''strategic energy fund'' to expand the use of ethanol and other alternative fuels. The bill, which was reintroduced last year, would direct billions of dollars to develop cellulosic ethanol, an experimental fuel made from organic materials other than corn. In addition to the legislation, Mrs. Clinton has spent an increasing amount of time in upstate New York, promoting the region as fertile territory for renewable energy projects. In Lockport in July 2006, she said she was working with the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry -- which has offered technical assistance to Cilion and other companies in the region -- to support locally produced ethanol, rather than ''just relying on corn in the Midwest.'' ''Because I want New York farmers, I want farmers around the country, to participate in this,'' she said. ''It's going to take building production facilities, and we're starting to do that.'' Several business and academic leaders in the region said they had crossed paths more than once with Mr. Clinton, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Khosla on the issue of biofuels, specifically cellulosic ethanol. Cornelius B. Murphy Jr., president of the environmental college, said Mrs. Clinton became very active in assisting the school's renewable energy projects starting in late 2005, and has since been involved in about eight events with the college. In 2006, the college also heard from Mr. Clinton, who wanted to talk to experts there about cellulosic ethanol and the concept of using forest products in place of corn. ''I'm amazed at how much her husband has picked up on this,'' Dr. Murphy said of the former president. ''He was very interested in the growth of energy feed stocks and how that could be worked into an integrated biorefinery.'' One of the biggest champions of cellulosic ethanol is Cilion's founder, Mr. Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems who has grown close to Mr. Clinton in recent years through a mutual interest in renewable energy. In November, at a renewable energy forum in Iowa that was attended by some of the presidential candidates, Mr. Khosla opened his PowerPoint presentation with a quote from Mr. Clinton on the economic benefits of green investments. Mr. Khosla provided seed money to create Cilion in June 2006, and shortly before the Clinton Global Initiative that September, Cilion announced it had received $160 million more, including an unspecified amount from Yucaipa. He is also backing another company, the Mascoma Corporation, which wants to build a plant in the Rochester area that will convert forest products, like wood chips and switch grass, into cellulosic ethanol. Mr. Khosla did not respond to a request for comment. Although Cilion uses corn, it hopes to eventually make cellulosic ethanol once the technology becomes commercially viable, said Jerry Wilhelm, the company's executive vice president. Mr. Wilhelm said Cilion, which also has projects in California, Pennsylvania and Washington State, picked New York because of its large potential ethanol market, the availability of farmland and local support. Mr. Wilhelm said that the New York projects were at an early stage, but that Mrs. Clinton ''definitely has been helpful,'' not only in writing letters but also in her general support of renewable energy initiatives in the region. ''We've gotten some letters of support from her that we've used in the permitting process,'' he said in an interview. ''We haven't asked for a lot, but what we've asked from her, she's responded.'' Late Wednesday, Yucaipa disputed that Mrs. Clinton had written any letters on behalf of Cilion. Efforts to reach Mr. Wilhelm to clarify the matter were unsuccessful. Cilion's efforts to set up a base of operations in upstate New York included joining the board of the Greater Rochester Enterprise, a nonprofit group that promotes business opportunities in the region. The group, which provided Cilion with office space and made introductions to key people, has worked closely with Mrs. Clinton on several renewable energy initiatives. Mrs. Clinton arranged for the group to work with the U.S. Green Buildings Council to produce a report on the economic benefits of renewable fuels and energy conservation in the Rochester area, where both of Cilion's ethanol projects are. The report concluded, among other things, that there should be more incentives to use locally generated renewable energy, and it cited a Cilion project, along with several others, as an example of available resources. The 17-page report, which devotes a full page to Mrs. Clinton and mentions her eight times, ''would not have happened without the senator,'' said Dennis M. Mullen, president of the Greater Rochester Enterprise. ''We have met with the senator on numerous occasions, not only on ethanol but also other issues,'' Mr. Mullen said. ''She has helped us promote that in numerous ways.'' Cilion, meanwhile, recently revamped its Web site and added comments from Mrs. Clinton and other presidential candidates to illustrate the depth of political support for ethanol. The new site quotes Mrs. Clinton saying the country needs ''an Apollo-like effort'' to invest in renewable energy, and it provides a link to her strategic energy fund at hillaryclinton.com. Directory: ~hesterj -> Entrepreneur Entrepreneur -> Byline: By richard siklos section: Section C; Column 5; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1 Length Download 3.51 Mb. Share with your friends:
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