Manor Care

Manor Care Inc.'s profit before one-time special charges jumped 15 percent to $23.6 million in its fiscal first quarter, the company said yesterday.The Gaithersburg-based health care concern reported earning 37 cents a share from continuing health care real estate operations and discontinued health care services operations, compared with earnings of $20.3 million, or 32 cents a share, in the corresponding period a year earlier.Manor Care's stock slipped 56 cents a share to $32.69 yesterday.

As it gears up to develop 200 assisted living complexes in the next five years, Manor Care Inc. of Gaithersburg announced yesterday that it will split itself into two companies -- one to build facilities and another to operate them.The move allows Manor Care to expand rapidly in the growing assisted living market -- it opened only half a dozen such facilities in the past fiscal year and expects 15 to 20 this year -- without damaging its track record for profitability.The problem with rapid development of new facilities is that there are "significant start-up losses, and that hits the bottom line," said Stewart Bainum Jr., chairman of Manor Care, who will be chairman of both new companies.

Manor Care, the Gaithersburg operator of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, reported a $136.9 million profit yesterday for its fiscal year ending May 31.That total cannot be compared directly with the previous year because of the spinoff of Manor Care's lodging division into Choice Hotels and a series of transactions involving Vitalink, an institutional pharmacy company in which Manor Care now owns 51 percent of the stock.Without Vitalink and other one-time charges, income from continuing operations was $94.7 million, or $1.50 per share, up 16.4 percent from $81.4 million, or $1.30 a share.

Moving to regain majority control of Vitalink Pharmacy Services, Manor Care announced yesterday that it would buy up to 1.5 million shares of the institutional pharmacy company at $20 a share.Manor Care, a Gaithersburg company that operates nursing facilities and assisted living complexes, owned 82 percent of Vitalink until February. Vitalink issued 11.7 million shares of stock to buy the TeamCare pharmacy division of GranCare Inc. of Atlanta, another long-term care company. The deal was valued at $388 million, including the assumption of $107 million in debt.

Manor Care Inc., the Gaithersburg operator of long-term care and assisted-living facilities, yesterday reported earnings of $61.4 million for the third quarter, including $37.1 million from the sale of part of its interest in Vitalink Pharmacy Services.Without the Vitalink proceeds, Manor Care earned $24.3 million, or 38 cents a share, up 16.3 percent from $20.9 million, or 33 cents a share, in the same quarter a year earlier.Earnings were 1 cent a share less than the average projected by nine analysts surveyed by I/B/E/S International.

The most upsetting aspect of Cigar's apparent failure as a sire is the snuffing out of dreams, the cruel theft of wonderment.I'm well aware that Maryland racetracks are tough places for dreams. When your entryway is a potholed parking lot, you enter resentful. When the barns where horses and humans reside aren't fit for dogs, you turn cynical.But you can't tell me that anyone who saw one of Cigar's races as his winning streak mounted doesn't yearn to see his babies run. The fans who cheered, or even cried, when Cigar held on for glory in Dubai wish someday to recall, when a little Cigar prances onto the racetrack, that magical moment on faraway sands.

WASHINGTON -- A Chevy Chase millionaire and former Maryland state senator has paid the government $4,000 in fines for violating campaign laws, the Federal Election Commission said.Stewart Bainum Jr. exceeded caps on campaign giving in 1992 and 1993 by funneling $4,000 in contributions to federal candidates through his son, Bradford, according to the FEC conciliation agreement made public Monday.The contributions were made before Bradford had turned 2 years old.Bainum is chief executive of Manor Care Inc., a national nursing-home chain.

Manor Care Inc. reported yesterday that it made $24 million in its core health business during its second quarter ended Nov. 30, 16.3 percent more than the $20.7 million it posted in the corresponding quarter last year.Revenues were $351.6 million, 17 percent more than the $299.7 million in the year-ago quarter. On a per-share basis, earnings were 38 cents compared with 33 cents a year ago.The earnings report was the first posted by the Gaithersburg company since it spun off its Choice hotel business Nov. 1. Including two months of income from hotel operations, Manor Care earned $32.4 million, or 51 cents a share, for the quarter.

Manor Care Inc. yesterday tapped Taco Bell Corp.'s chief operating officer to become the top executive of its Choice Hotels International Inc. division, which is being spun off from the Gaithersburg health care firm next month.The appointment of William R. Floyd as chief executive officer and vice chairman of Choice Hotels comes before the anticipated Nov. 1 tax-free spinoff of the hotel business, the world's second-largest lodging franchise company."He's a brand builder who knows a lot about franchising," said Stewart Bainum Jr., Manor Care's chairman and chief executive officer, who will remain chairman of Choice Hotels.

Hospitals have formed networks. Doctors have. Independent pharmacies have. And now it's nursing homes, in their new incarnation as "post-acute-care facilities."ManorCare Health Services, a Gaithersburg-based nursing behemoth, and Maryland Health Enterprises, which operates three nursing-rehabilitation centers in Maryland under the Lorien Nursing and Rehabilitation name, yesterday announced the formation of the Mid Atlantic Post Acute Network (MAPAN), designed to seek managed care contracts.