June 23, 1993
Zenith Data-Packard Bell alliance
Zenith Data Systems, a notebook-computer specialist owned by France's struggling Groupe Bull SA, announced an alliance yesterday with Packard Bell, a leading maker of desktop personal computers. The move is the second major consolidation in a month involving two of the nation's 10 largest personal-computer makers.
Zenith Data will pay an undisclosed sum for 19.9 percent of the privately held Packard Bell. The companies will work together to design and build desktop PCs but will market products under separate brand names.
House backs trade authorization
The House voted yesterday to extend the administration's fast-track authority to complete negotiations on a global free-trade agreement.
The bill, approved 295-126, empowers the president to enter trade pacts before April 16, 1994, worked out by the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Baltimore Bancorp on S&P watch
Standard & Poor's Corp. said it has placed the CC subordinated debt rating on Baltimore Bancorp on its CreditWatch with "positive implications." The credit-rating agency said it also placed the CCC/C uninsured certificate of deposit rating of the Bank of Baltimore on CreditWatch, also with "positive implications." About $6 million of debt is affected.
S&P cited the "success of Baltimore Bancorp's capital restoration program," which has raised nearly $25 million in equity, and an overall improvement in the company's financial health.
Prague Stock Exchange opens
More than three years after they began dismantling their communist-run economy, Czechs yesterday unveiled an unabashedly capitalist institution: the Prague Stock Exchange.
Trading volume totaled 168 million Czech crowns, or $6 million, on the first day.
Martin to lay off 95 in N.Y.
Bethesda-based Martin Marietta Corp. said it will lay off about 95 employees at plants in Syracuse and Utica, N.Y., that produce radar and sensor equipment.
In Syracuse, the company will lay off 25 people, primarily because of the loss of the SQQ-89 Surface Ship Antisubmarine Warfare contract with the Navy last year. The plant employs about 3,100. At the Utica plant, which has 1,500 workers, 60 hourly workers will be laid off temporarily, and nine salaried workers will be laid off permanently.
