Company S Stock

NEW YORK - Martha Stewart, whose multimillion-dollar empire is based on her impeccable skills on both the homemaking and business-building fronts, was found guilty yesterday of making an uncharacteristic mess of things: lying, conspiring and obstructing a federal investigation of her suspiciously timed sale of stock in a biotech company. As the verdict was read - guilty on all four counts - Stewart maintained the stony expression she wore throughout much of the six-week trial, as her daughter, Alexis, crouched over and buried her face in her hands.

Activist investor Nelson Peltz has increased his ownership stake in Baltimore money manager Legg Mason Inc., according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing this week. Peltz, who joined the company's board this fall after acquiring 4.3 percent of the company's stock, bought an additional 717,000 shares this week. That increases his holdings to just under 7.7 million shares, or 4.75 percent of the company. Peltz is known for targeting good but underperforming brands, but Legg Mason said he is not trying to push for the company's sale or breakup.

Environmental Elements Corp., a nearly 60-year-old Baltimore company that produces air pollution control equipment, has filed for bankruptcy and plans to sell its remaining operations. The company, in a statement, blamed the bankruptcy on increased competition and higher prices for steel and other raw materials. The bankruptcy filing follows a trend of downward sales and profits over the past three years. Sales plunged to $27.5 million in 2004 from $43.7 million in 2003 and $71.9 million in 2002, according to the company's most recent annual report for the fiscal year that ended in March 2004.

NEW YORK -- A federal judge set a $500,000 bond yesterday for a former executive at a Maryland technology company who has been charged with manipulating stock option grants to allow top employees to lock in unlawful stock gains and exaggerated bonuses. Flanked by two attorneys and watched by her husband in the courtroom gallery, Carole D. Argo, 46, a former chief financial officer, president and chief operating officer of SafeNet Inc. in Belcamp, in Harford County, entered a not guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy.

If he makes good on his promise to boost Black & Decker Corp.'s stock price, Chief Executive Officer Nolan D. Archibald will have earned more each day in 1992 than the average Marylander earned all year.That's one of many surprises revealed in new proxy statements, which for the first time require companies to tell stockholders exactly how much top executives are paid -- and how well the company's stock performed. And that information is fueling a growing debate: Are the executives worth the millions they receive?

For stockholders of Biospherics Inc., lightning does strike twice in the same place.For the second time in three months, the company's stock price has shot up. Yesterday the price rose 36 percent, but company officials said they didn't have a clue as to why it soared.In trading yesterday, the stock closed at $9.87 1/2 up $2.62 1/2 and 255,000 shares changed hands. On Monday, when the stock closed at $7.25, only 32,000 shares were traded.On April 5, Biospherics stock closed at $4. The following Monday, the stock soared to $7.25.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. had set itself up for a whipping, and yesterday the whipping came.The Cockeysville broadcasting company's stock lost 28.5 percent of its value yesterday, falling $4.1875 to close at $10.50. The steep decline came after Sinclair warned late Tuesday that its new campaign to invest in television-station personnel, programming and promotion would help drag down its financial numbers for the rest of the year.Investors exchanged 11.33 million Sinclair shares, making the stock the 12th most active on U.S. markets yesterday.

Rockville-based EntreMed Inc., which in April canceled plans to sell 2 million additional shares after investors fled biotechnology stocks, announced plans yesterday to complete a more modest, 1-million-share offering that would net the company about $20.6 million. EntreMed said the proceeds - enough to help carry it "well beyond" a year - would be used to test its experimental protein drugs designed to block the growth of tumor-feeding blood vessels as well as for day-to-day expenses and general corporate purposes.

If it's free, it must be a good deal, right? Not always. Take your employer's stock, for instance. Lots of Americans receive company stock as part or all of the employer's contribution to the 401(k) retirement plan. It's often a lousy deal. At Enron Corp., the Houston energy-trading company that filed for bankruptcy Dec. 2., shares skyrocketed in the late 1990s, hitting $90 a little more than a year ago and making thousands of employees rich, on paper at least. Currently Enron shares are trading at under $1. Those employees aren't likely to recover because shareholders are the last in line when a company's assets are divvied up in bankruptcy court to pay debts.

It was nearly the end of the meeting before the question was asked: What about the stock price? Shares of Ciena Corp. tumbled 18 percent, or $11.81, yesterday to close at $53.31. During morning trading, the stock price hit $51.44 - a 21 percent drop from Friday's closing price. "There are big market factors occurring," Patrick H. Nettles, Ciena's chairman and chief executive officer, said yesterday at the company's annual shareholders meeting in Linthicum. "I think we are seeing the result of investor emotions as much as investor logic."

Carole D. Argo, a former top executive at Harford County technology company SafeNet Inc., was indicted yesterday on charges of rigging stock-option grants in a six-year scheme that netted her and other employees millions of dollars in improper stock gains and inflated bonuses. Argo, 46, is expected to be arraigned today in Manhattan federal court on charges of securities fraud and conspiracy. If convicted, she faces a maximum of 25 years in prison and fines of at least $250,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Shares of McDonald's Corp., the world's largest restaurant operator, have rebounded in the past few months to levels not seen in more than six years. The climb comes on the heels of a 50 percent boost in the company's dividend and pressure from a hedge fund manager threatening a proxy fight. The company's stock has risen more than 25 percent from the July 14 close of $33.04 to yesterday's closing price of $42.23 on news that its September sales were stronger than expected and third-quarter profits would exceed the predictions of analysts.

Shares of Advancis Pharmaceutical Corp. fell slightly in moderate trading yesterday on news that a planned sale of its only revenue-generating product fell through. In August, the Germantown drugmaker struck a deal to sell the rights to manufacture and market its Keflex antibiotic to a privately held company for about $11 million, the same price it paid to buy the drug from Eli Lilly and Co. in 2004. The money was to pay for retooled clinical trials of another, developing antibiotic in which Advancis has high hopes despite two testing failures.

Back in the day, when their stocks were flying high, Colleen and Daniel Ganzer would plug their savings information into financial calculators and smile. It was early 2000, they were still in their mid-30s, and Dan's 401(k) plan was worth a quarter of a million dollars. Five years and one tech-stock meltdown later, things look a lit tle different. They've continued to save and have added to other accounts, but the 401(k) account stands at $105,000 - largely because of losses on his own company's stock - Lucent Technologies.

FTI Consulting Inc., an Annapolis-based consulting company in the hot field of forensic accounting, said yesterday that it will tap public debt markets for the first time by selling $300 million in notes. Company officials said the offering will provide more financial flexibility by allowing FTI to refinance bank debt, while analysts said it would put FTI in good position to make acquisitions. "I'd be surprised if we didn't see something before the end of the year," said David Gold, senior equity analyst at Sidoti & Co., a research firm in New York.

Environmental Elements Corp., a nearly 60-year-old Baltimore company that produces air pollution-control equipment, has filed for bankruptcy and plans to sell its remaining operations. The company, in a statement, blamed the bankruptcy on increased competition and higher prices for steel and other raw materials. The bankruptcy filing follows a trend of downward sales and profits over the past three years. Sales plunged to $27.5 million in 2004 from $43.7 million in 2003 and $71.9 million in 2002, according to the company's most recent annual report for the fiscal year that ended in March 2004.

The National Association of Securities Dealers released yesterday a package of reforms it said will make Nasdaq, the nation's second-biggest stock market, fairer to small investors.The moves come after a year in which Nasdaq members' current practices have come under fire from academics and under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department Antitrust Division. The electronic market's procedures also have inspired a class-action lawsuit, which was broadened yesterday to include charges that prices of more than 1,600 stocks had been fixed.

DOUGLAS L. Becker, president of Sylvan Learning Systems Inc., made the mistake of checking the company's stock price on a day recently when the market was being ripped apart.What Becker saw was grim. Sylvan's stock had slid to a 52-week low of $18.25 on Oct. 5 -- sliced in half in a little over two months from a high of $36.875."I was just looking at it, shaking my head," Becker said. "That's kind of a stunning decline. I walked into the lobby and it was the same building, the same people, the same product.

Environmental Elements Corp., a nearly 60-year-old Baltimore company that produces air pollution control equipment, has filed for bankruptcy and plans to sell its remaining operations. The company, in a statement, blamed the bankruptcy on increased competition and higher prices for steel and other raw materials. The bankruptcy filing follows a trend of downward sales and profits over the past three years. Sales plunged to $27.5 million in 2004 from $43.7 million in 2003 and $71.9 million in 2002, according to the company's most recent annual report for the fiscal year that ended in March 2004.

NEW YORK - Martha Stewart, whose multimillion-dollar empire is based on her impeccable skills on both the homemaking and business-building fronts, was found guilty yesterday of making an uncharacteristic mess of things: lying, conspiring and obstructing a federal investigation of her suspiciously timed sale of stock in a biotech company. As the verdict was read - guilty on all four counts - Stewart maintained the stony expression she wore throughout much of the six-week trial, as her daughter, Alexis, crouched over and buried her face in her hands.