Restructuring

The IndyCar racing organization joined city officials on Thursday in calling for change at the financially embattled company that runs the Baltimore Grand Prix, characterizing it as disorganized and saying it needs restructuring as it addresses unpaid debt. Baltimore Racing Development, which ran the inaugural Grand Prix through downtown and around the Inner Harbor over Labor Day weekend, has been sued by a number of vendors and lenders alleging that the organizers have nearly $1.6 million in unpaid bills.

It was a familiar scene for the Ravens' offensive backfield as running back Ray Rice took handoffs and made his cuts with Pro Bowl fullback Vonta Leach operating as his lead blocker on Thursday morning. Behind the scenes, though, whether Leach runs interference for Rice this season under his current contract remains an unresolved situation. The Ravens would ideally like to lower Leach's $4.33 million salary-cap figure and are expected to craft a proposal to try to adjust his contract, according to league sources.

Alexander & Alexander Services Inc. will restructure its international insurance brokerage business and take a $75 million charge against its fourth-quarter earnings, resulting in a loss for the three months and the year, the company said yesterday.Alexander & Alexander, a New York-based insurance company that has more than 800 employees in Maryland, also announced yesterday that it will close some of its 210 brokerage offices, cut its staff and sell some of its underwriting and management divisions.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Orioles right-hander Jair Jurrjens, signed to a minor league contract Friday evening, joined spring training camp this morning for the team's first full squad workout of the spring. Jurrjens, who initially agreed to a major league deal worth $1.5 million pending a physical, settled for a minor league contract with spring training invite when his physical raised health concerns. “There's no hard feelings,” Jurrjens said before Saturday's workout. “That's part of the business.” Jurrjens will compete for a rotation spot, but since he's signed to a minor league contract, the team could easily send him to Triple-A Norfolk.

Environmental Elements Corp., which has seen its profits go up in smoke along with the demand for its air pollution control devices, announced another restructuring yesterday.The Baltimore-based maker of smokestack "scrubbers" said it will close its Jeffersonville, Ind., facility and lay off most of the 50 workers there.At least 10 of the Indiana workers will be offered jobs in Baltimore, the company said.In addition, the company shuffled its executives. Chairman Richard Hug, who led the company when it broke away from Koppers Co. in 1983, and when it went public in 1990, was moved to chairman emeritus.

Savings from a corporate restructuring implemented in June last year was credited with a sharp turnaround of earnings at UNC Inc., the Annapolis-based aircraft service company said yesterday.Net income for the three months ended June 30 was $959,000, or 5 cents a share. This compares with a loss of $54.6 million, or $3.12 a share, a year earlier.Operating income showed an even more significant reversal. In the most recent quarter the company posted an operating profit of $6.4 million. That compared with a second-quarter loss from continuing operations of $63.7 million in the same period last year.

UNC Inc., an Annapolis-based aviation service company, yesterday announced a restructuring program that will eliminate about 300 jobs and result in a charge against second-quarter earnings of approximately $50 million.The news was not welcomed on Wall Street. UNC's stock fell 21 percent before trading was halted to close at $6, down $1.625.The move is seen as a bitter dose of medicine that is expected to create annual savings of $15 million and generate another $85 million in cash through asset sales over the next 18 months.

UNC Inc. -- the Annapolis-based company that has just completed an extensive five-year restructuring that involved the divestment or closing of 21 businesses and the purchase of seven new ones -- is geared for significant growth over the next five years, its chairman and chief executive told shareholders yesterday.Dan A. Colussy told investors attending the annual stockholder's meeting at Baltimore's Harbor Court Hotel that the company is also in line to pick up part of a new contract related to the Air Force's new $70 billion Advanced Tactical Fighter program.

NEW YORK -- The Marriott Corp. said it would delay the company's controversial restructuring plan after bondholders agreed to a two-week delay in a court hearing scheduled in a suit aimed at blocking the plan.The two-week delay in the hearing, which now will take place Feb. 11, would result in an accompanying two-week delay in the company's restructuring plan, Marriott spokesman Terry Souers said.Unless the court prohibits it from going through, the company would be restructured in early June instead of mid-May, Mr. Souers said.

NEW YORK -- The Marriott Corp.'s bonds continued to slide yesterday, as debt holders' negative reaction to the company's restructuring plan persisted.Charles Bishop, a bond analyst at Kidder, Peabody, said, "They just kept widening," referring to the spread between Marriott bonds and Treasury bonds of comparable maturity. The increased spread signifies the increased risk seen by investors in owning Marriott bonds.On Monday, Marriott said it planned to split into two public companies by mid-1993.

For the first time in 16 years, the directors of the Baltimore Development Corp. met Thursday without M.J. "Jay" Brodie at the helm of the city's influential, quasi-public economic development arm. The BDC's acting president, Kimberly A. Clark, who has expressed interest in the open top job, briefed board members on several of the corporation's initiatives: •An expanded special tax zone for Under Armour Inc., a move that would allow the...

Depressing news coming out of California today: computer and printer giant HP announced a big restructuring plan that involves it saying goodbye to 27,000 workers, or 8 percent of its 325,000 global workforce , the company said . To put it in perspective, that's equivalent to everybody in Crofton, Md. ( Pop: 27,348 ), getting a pink slip. The company, which hasn't been able to come up with a competitor to the iPhone/iPad/mobile device space, said it expected to save $3-3.5 billion annually with the cuts beginning in 2014.

Baltimore school officials will begin meeting with four school communities Wednesday, after the district made recommendations that will displace dozens of staff and hundreds of students at one failing high school in Cherry Hill and three elementary/middle schools. It will be one of many community and public meetings taking place at Southside Academy High School, Federal Hill Preparatory, Moravia Park Elementary/Middle, and Steuart Hill Academy. Southside, a failing high school, will close on June 30; the three elementary/middle schools will drop their struggling middle school programs to free up seats and strengthen their elementary school programs.

The IndyCar racing organization joined city officials on Thursday in demanding change at the financially embattled company that runs the Baltimore Grand Prix, characterizing it as disorganized and calling for it to be restructured as it addresses unpaid debt. Baltimore Racing Development, which ran this year's inaugural Grand Prix through downtown and around the Inner Harbor over Labor Day weekend, has been sued by a number of vendors and lenders over an alleged total of $1.6 million in unpaid bills.

The Anne Arundel County school board has approved a revamped countywide Citizen Advisory Committee, appointing a 29-member executive panel that it says will strengthen the panel's ability to advise the board on education-related matters. The board appointed 26 county residents Tuesday to join three representatives from countywide parent groups on the CAC. The retooling comes about a year after tensions between the CAC and the board prompted CAC Chairman Tom Frank to resign, saying that what he thought was the group's function was not consistent with what the school board expected.

Erickson Living, a Catonsville-based developer and manager of retirement communities, laid off 30 corporate employees earlier this month as part of business restructuring that has been under way since the company emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership in the spring. A spokesman for the company, previously called Erickson Retirement Communities, said half of those employees worked in the Baltimore region and that all were given severance and outplacement help. The spokesman, Dan Dunne, said the company has hired more than 2,000 people since June at various levels, including 50 in the corporate offices.

NEW YORK -- Conventional wisdom had it that Westinghouse Electric Corp. needed a good thrashing to bring it back into line. Divisions had to be sold, and quickly, while "fat" had to be "trimmed" and management bullwhipped into shape.The problem with that view is that it was wrong, at least according to the company's chairman and chief executive, Michael H. Jordan.Last week, while unveiling Westinghouse's second restructuring in 14 months, the 57-year-old former PepsiCo executive proved to be more of a discrete counselor for the company than the loud-mouthed drill sergeant favored by Wall Street's management mavens.

Bankruptcy and debt default are a real possibility for cities around the country that can't pay their bills, largely caused by lavish retirement and health care benefits for employees that taxpayers couldn't afford even in good times. Los Angeles is headed down that road. Vallejo, Calif., filed for bankruptcy in 2008. Closer to home, Harrisburg, Pa., is exploring the option as a way to restructure bills it can't pay. And last week, Warren Buffet said at a hearing of the U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in New York that his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has been cutting its exposure to municipal debt because he foresees "a terrible problem" with state and local bonds.