Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Graham and Doddsville -- Value Investing In The New Era -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cfimx who wrote (1301)	2/19/1999 8:29:00 AM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

A Ride On Mir Costs $20 Million "Russia Set To Launch Perhaps Last Crew To Mir" By Adam Tanner -- Friday February 19 3:57 AM ET MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is preparing for the launch Saturday of what could be the last crew on the Mir space station and, in a sign times are tough, two of its three members are fare-paying foreigners -- a Frenchman and a Slovak. Ironically, Saturday is also the 13th anniversary of the launch of the first module of the Mir station but celebrations are likely to be muted. Russian space officials are at present engaged in a desperate search for private funds to keep the complex in orbit past August when the new crew returns to earth. Russian commander Viktor Afanasyev, Frenchman Jean-Pierre Haignere and Slovak Ivan Bella are due to take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0418 GMT Saturday. By sending up two foreigners with the commander, Russia has in effect sold off the place on the cramped three-seat Soyuz capsule usually reserved for the Russian flight engineer, the top technical specialist on board. As a result, Sergei Avdeyev, who has already spent six months in orbit, will stay for another half a year and return in August with Afanasiyev and Haignere. Even after spending 359 days in space, he will fall short of the record by two and a half months. Air Force pilot Afanasyev, 50, is returning to the Mir station for the third time, and is due to spend six months on board with Haignere, who visited Mir for three weeks in 1993. Haignere, like Afanasyev an air force colonel and also 50, plans two space walks during his mission to install and remove scientific experiments from the exterior. Bella returns after eight days with outgoing commander Gennady Padalka. After a near-fatal collision with a cargo craft in 1997, Mir has enjoyed a relatively trouble-free period, although like an older Russian car, it needs constant small repairs. The Russian Space Agency says it has government funding to keep it flying until August. After that it is up to the Energiya rocket corporation which owns Mir to find private sponsors. So far they have failed to secure any private financing, Russian Space Agency director Yuri Koptev said this week. The foreign cosmonauts blasting off for Mir are playing an important role in subsidizing the $200 million to $250 million a year it needs to keep the station in orbit. Slovakia says it is writing off about $20 million of Soviet- era debt Moscow owes in exchange for Bella's flight, and France is paying $20.6 million, according to the European Space Agency. Pierre Paul Baskevitch, science counselor at the French Embassy in Moscow, said France ended up getting a bargain because Russia extended Haignere's flight from three to six months without asking for more money. ''France said 'why not, if it is the same price','' Baskevitch said. ''Of course it's a good deal.'' Russia's intention to keep Mir aloft beyond an original retirement date of June has irritated the United States, which has pressed Moscow to focus its meager resources on an International Space Station in the early stages of construction. The new station is more than a year behind schedule because of Russian delays. ''I have to say above all that we are letting our partners down a little,'' Koptev said earlier this week.

To: cfimx who wrote (1301)	2/19/1999 8:50:00 AM
From: porcupine --''''>	Respond to of 1722

Gillette's CEO Resigns, COO To Take Over By Leslie Gevirtz - Friday February 19 12:03 AM ET BOSTON (Reuters) - Gillette Co. (NYSE:G - news)'s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Al Zeien, who turned the lowly razor into a multibillion dollar worldwide business, announced his resignation Thursday. Zeien, 68, has been at the helm of the consumer product giant for eight years and said after the market closed he would leave the cutting edge company effective April 15. Michael Hawley, 61, currently chief operating officer and president of the Boston-based firm that also makes Duracell batteries, Oral-B toothbrushes and Braun appliances, will assume the top jobs after the April 15 stockholders' meeting. ''The market cap was $6 billion when I took over. It closed today at $63 billion. I kind of like the numbers,'' Zeien told analysts and reporters in a conference call. Asked why he was leaving after what has turned out to be the successful launch of the Mach 3 - the company's triple-blade, premium priced razor - Zeien replied, ''I've always been a great advocate of term limits...While never the best time, this is almost the best time.'' For 32 consecutive quarters Gillette reported double-digit earnings per share growth until 1998's third quarter ''blip'' as Zeien called it. The company has since returned to positive earnings per share growth. ''Plans are in motion to make 1999 an excellent year and to return to a 15 to 20 percent EPS growth in the second half,'' Zeien said. The gregarious Zeien has spent 31 years with Gillette starting as general manager of a division at Braun AG based in Kronberg, Germany. A graduate of the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, before joining Gillette he worked for General Dynamics Shipyard in Quincy, Mass. Zeien has powered the company's growth with a one-size-fits-all markets approach. Whether it be Rio de Janeiro, Moscow or Boston, Zeien sees a lot of people in need of a shave, or a battery, or a toothbrush. ''A global company views the world as a single country,'' he once said. ''We know Argentina and France are different but we treat them the same.'' Two-thirds of Gillette's revenues come from abroad. It seeks to dominate whatever market it is in. Gillette has 70 percent of the world market for razors and blades. Its pen business - it owns Paper Mate, Waterman and Parker Pen - is the world's largest. Gillette's board of directors have enticed Zeien to stay on in the CEO role with incentive packages for the last four years. ''They didn't have the opportunity to (this year),'' he joked. Zeien will remain on Gillette's board of directors and continue to serve on the boards of Polaroid, Raytheon and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. Hawley has been groomed to takeover the top job for several years. Zeien called it an ''orderly transfer of management.'' In the 36 years he has been with Gillette, Hawley has served in a variety of finance, marketing, technical operations and general management positions in most of the company's core product categories. He has lived and worked in six countries on five continents. His latest project has been to direct the design and implementation of the Gillette's global business process integration initiative. He also led the recent management reorganization that includes a global business management focus for each of the core categories and a commercial selling organization to leverage strengths across all product lines.