Corporate Finance

Hilary Schneider, vice president of sales and marketing at The Sun, yesterday was named general manager of the newspaper.In her new post, Schneider, 37, will oversee operations and production, information technology and organization development. She will continue to be in charge of advertising, circulation, marketing and new business.The promotion was announced by Michael E. Waller, publisher and chief executive officer of The Sun. The newspaper has not had a general manager for about a decade.

Florence L. "Meg" Walsh, a Baltimore native who was one of the architects of telecommunications giant Lucent Technologies, died yesterday of toxic shock syndrome at Morristown Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. She was 37 and had given birth a week before to a son, Dixon, who died at birth of the same cause.At the time of her death, Mrs. Walsh was the treasurer of a company that has 130,000 employees and $30 billion a year in revenues. Since Lucent's formation in 1996 as a spinoff of AT&T, she was responsible for the company's dealings with global capital markets, corporate finance and administration of the more than $50 billion in employee benefit assets and financing of Lucent customers.

Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. said yesterday that it still plans to acquire Heritage Media Corp., despite yesterday's announcement that U.S. Department of Justice officials will challenge News Corp. Ltd.'s acquisition of Heritage because of potential antitrust implications.The Justice Department's antitrust field office in San Francisco informed Dallas-based Heritage and Australian media giant News Corp. Ltd. of its decision after the close of the market.The companies have agreed to give the regulators more time either to challenge the transaction or to allow it to close.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- First Union Corp.'s third-quarter earnings rose 14 percent as the bank boosted revenue by expanding corporate finance and money-management businesses.The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank said net income rose to a record $505 million, or 90 cents a share, from $442 million, or 81 cents, in the year-earlier period. The earnings beat the average Wall Street forecast of 89 cents a share from a survey of analysts by IBES International Inc.First Union shares fell 31 cents to $51.0625.

The steep slope on a graph in a Sparrows Point conference room charts the decline of the Bethlehem Steel plant -- from 30,965 employees in 1960 to 7,500 in 1988.On a table beneath a huge aerial photograph of the once bustling "Point" is a symbol of trouble ahead -- the annual report of rival Nucor Corp., whose new South Carolina plant will make half the steel with one-tenth the employees.Amid signs of difficulty past and future, mechanic Andrew Bates III plays Zodiak, a sort of souped-up version of Monopoly intended to teach Steelworkers about corporate finance -- from deadbeat customers to demanding investors.

Legg Mason Inc. said its profits fell 58 percent in the last three months of 1994, as higher interest rates froze public offerings for bonds and real estate investment trusts and drove investment banking revenues down to just over one-third of late 1993 levels.The Baltimore-based stock brokerage, best known for serving retail customers, said it earned $4.1 million during the quarter, the third of the company's fiscal year. That was down from $9.9 million in the same three months of 1993.Vice Chairman John F. Curley Jr. said the drop in stock and bond offerings was the main reason for the decline.

NEW YORK -- Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. sued hundreds of its former employees yesterday in an attempt to recover more than $250 million in bonuses paid shortly before the company filed for bankruptcy in early 1990.The bonuses have been at the heart of some of the biggest controversies resulting from the collapse of the Wall Street powerhouse.The size of Drexel's bonuses was long a legend on Wall Street, but yesterday's lawsuit for the first time provides details of how rich those payments were, showing that many executives got between $100,000 and $1 million each month.

Legg Mason Wood Walker Inc. said yesterday that it is beefing up its corporate finance business by hiring 11 professionals from a Philadelphia firm that caters to small and medium-sized companies.The Baltimore-based securities company said it has hired the corporate finance staff of Middle Market Group L.P., which has focused primarily on companies with annual sales of $15 million to $200 million.Legg Mason said its new staff members specialize in mergers and acquisitions and the private placement of securities.

Legg Mason's Dunn does legal encoreYou can take Jack B. Dunn IV out of the law, but you can't take the law out of Jack Dunn. The co-manager of Legg Mason Inc.'s Baltimore corporate finance department has returned to his legal roots with a move this month to Annapolis-based Forensic Technologies Corp. Inc.FTI is a litigation consulting firm, providing everything from engineering and scientific analysis to expert witnesses and jury analysis. Mr. Dunn, who joined Legg Mason a decade ago from Baltimore's Weinberg and Green, helped FTI secure equity financing this spring from Grotech Capital Group, a venture firm in Timonium.

Two Annapolis investment firms said yesterday that they will merge in order to form a more diversified company that they hope will become a player in meeting the financing needs of small businesses.Clark Melvin Securities Corp., a stock brokerage firm, and Perkins-DeMaris Inc., a small corporate finance and investment banking firm, will form a joint venture by June 1. Perkins-DeMaris will become a subsidiary of Clark Melvin within a year of that date, said Lawrence T. Lewis III, chairman of Clark Melvin's executive committee.

Business advisory firm FTI Consulting Inc. is buying real estate and finance consulting firm the Schonbraun McCann Group for $125 million, a move FTI expects will make it a leading player among real estate consultants at a time when a global credit crisis is creating demand for such services, FTI said yesterday. FTI, based in Baltimore, said it plans to close on the deal today for $100 million in cash and about $25 million in restricted FTI stock. FTI said it expects to pay an additional amount if earnings exceed certain targets over the next five years.

Robert F. Hochwarth, a retired railroad lawyer who had been senior counsel at CSX and was an avid sports fan, died of pulmonary disease Wednesday at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital. The Mays Chapel resident was 76. Mr. Hochwarth was born in Baltimore and raised in Pikesville. He was a 1949 graduate of Loyola High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Loyola College in 1953. He served in the Army from 1953 to 1955 and attained the rank of corporal. He then enrolled at the University of Maryland School of Law. After earning his law degree in 1958, he clerked for Judge William Horney of the Maryland Court of Appeals in Annapolis before joining the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's corporate finance department in 1961.

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted 78-15 last night to give the government broader power to regulate cigarettes and create an industry-financed buyout of tobacco "quotas" that have propped up prices since the 1930s. The vote on the $12 billion tobacco buyout added language to a corporate tax bill needed to end escalating European duties on several U.S. products. Whether it will become law remains in doubt, because little time remains in this legislative year for a House-Senate conference committee to resolve disagreements about the tobacco measure.

NEW YORK - Corporations beware: If you were born around 1865, Deadria C. Farmer-Paellmann is looking for slaves in your archives and may have bad news for you. The sleuthing started in 1992 when, as artistic director of the protest (a 26-hour "drum vigil") that halted excavation of a 17th-century African burial ground near City Hall, Farmer-Paellmann got insider privileges to crunch a hard hat over her dreadlocks and crash the site. There she stumbled on a scene that changed - and channeled - her life's work.

Florence L. "Meg" Walsh, a Baltimore native who was one of the architects of telecommunications giant Lucent Technologies, died yesterday of toxic shock syndrome at Morristown Memorial Hospital in New Jersey. She was 37 and had given birth a week before to a son, Dixon, who died at birth of the same cause.At the time of her death, Mrs. Walsh was the treasurer of a company that has 130,000 employees and $30 billion a year in revenues. Since Lucent's formation in 1996 as a spinoff of AT&T, she was responsible for the company's dealings with global capital markets, corporate finance and administration of the more than $50 billion in employee benefit assets and financing of Lucent customers.

Hilary Schneider, vice president of sales and marketing at The Sun, yesterday was named general manager of the newspaper.In her new post, Schneider, 37, will oversee operations and production, information technology and organization development. She will continue to be in charge of advertising, circulation, marketing and new business.The promotion was announced by Michael E. Waller, publisher and chief executive officer of The Sun. The newspaper has not had a general manager for about a decade.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- First Union Corp.'s third-quarter earnings rose 14 percent as the bank boosted revenue by expanding corporate finance and money-management businesses.The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank said net income rose to a record $505 million, or 90 cents a share, from $442 million, or 81 cents, in the year-earlier period. The earnings beat the average Wall Street forecast of 89 cents a share from a survey of analysts by IBES International Inc.First Union shares fell 31 cents to $51.0625.

Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. said yesterday that it still plans to acquire Heritage Media Corp., despite yesterday's announcement that U.S. Department of Justice officials will challenge News Corp. Ltd.'s acquisition of Heritage because of potential antitrust implications.The Justice Department's antitrust field office in San Francisco informed Dallas-based Heritage and Australian media giant News Corp. Ltd. of its decision after the close of the market.The companies have agreed to give the regulators more time either to challenge the transaction or to allow it to close.

The steep slope on a graph in a Sparrows Point conference room charts the decline of the Bethlehem Steel plant -- from 30,965 employees in 1960 to 7,500 in 1988.On a table beneath a huge aerial photograph of the once bustling "Point" is a symbol of trouble ahead -- the annual report of rival Nucor Corp., whose new South Carolina plant will make half the steel with one-tenth the employees.Amid signs of difficulty past and future, mechanic Andrew Bates III plays Zodiak, a sort of souped-up version of Monopoly intended to teach Steelworkers about corporate finance -- from deadbeat customers to demanding investors.

Legg Mason Inc. said its profits fell 58 percent in the last three months of 1994, as higher interest rates froze public offerings for bonds and real estate investment trusts and drove investment banking revenues down to just over one-third of late 1993 levels.The Baltimore-based stock brokerage, best known for serving retail customers, said it earned $4.1 million during the quarter, the third of the company's fiscal year. That was down from $9.9 million in the same three months of 1993.Vice Chairman John F. Curley Jr. said the drop in stock and bond offerings was the main reason for the decline.