The honeymoon's over

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Mar 21, 2000

NEW YORK (NYT) -- "Which idiot in this company is responsible for hiring a temp to work on mergers?"

That shout from the audience greeted Henry M. Paulson, chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group, all of five minutes into the company's first shareholder meeting.

The security breach that allowed a temporary employee to steal and sell inside information on pending merger deals, which led last week to criminal charges against 19 people, was just one of the unpleasant topics Paulson had to discuss Friday morning when two stockholders commandeered what might have been a short, sweet gathering. The doubling of Goldman's stock price since it went public in May was nearly lost amid the fireworks.

As she often does at annual meetings, the woman who shouted, Evelyn Y. Davis, did most of the talking, lambasting the board over the affair of the temp. Another investor, Harry Korba, chimed in to ask Paulson if he had considered declining his $16 million bonus for 1999. "No, I didn't," Paulson replied.

Davis also griped that too little Goldman stock went to individual investors. She said she had to call David H. Komansky, chairman of Merrill Lynch, to obtain 100 shares. Paulson joked that Komansky had done Goldman "a big favor."

Still a limited edition

NEW YORK (NYT) -- It was one of those serendipitous meetings that most entrepreneurs only dream about.

Exhibiting his wares at the International Fashion Boutique Show in Manhattan last May, Keith Merl, an importer of hand-woven Guatemalan cotton and other Central and South American textiles, received a visit from an editor for Sports Illustrated. She was particularly interested in one of his hats, and commissioned Merl to make a bathing suit from the same fabric. Thus did Merl's swimsuit come to adorn a model featured in the magazine's 2000 swimsuit edition, which hit newsracks last month.

Merl's business may never be the same. (Or maybe it will; more on that in a moment.) In the last month, his Web site, www.artesaniainc.com, has received nearly 12,000 hits; most of these were from people interested in the bathing suit, many of whom reached his site through a link on www.sportsillustrated.com. So far, though, Merl hasn't found a manufacturer or online retailer to produce and sell the suits. "I didn't know what volume to expect," Merl said. "Anyway, the rest of the business was going so well, I said I wasn't going to get into the bathing suit business."

The rest of his business involves selling South American textiles wholesale to Japanese companies; owning a retail store called Artesania, in the Willowbrook Mall in Wayne, N.J.; and selling clothing through the Sundance Catalog. The mall store is doing particularly well, he said, and he is considering licensing the Artesania brand.

Whether Merl will ever get into the swimsuit business is still up in the air. Eventually, he said, he does hope to have the wherewithal to manufacture and sell the suits. But he does not seem to have the 24/7/365 urgency that marks the budding e-commerce executive. Last week, clicking the "Swimsuit" link on his Web site produced the message "HTTP/1.1 404 Object Not Found." Merl, meanwhile, was off to Europe on vacation.

Sounds like the Olympics

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- March Madness Meatloaf? Not a chance. NCAA Nachos? Forget about it. And even a friendly little Big Dance Brewski at one of the local watering holes would be, it seems, absolutely unconscionable when the Final Four comes to town.

When the men's college basketball tournament brings the fanfare of its championship to Indianapolis this year, restaurants, shops, hotels and bars must follow rigorous guidelines to capitalize on the fervor. It's part of the NCAA's vigorous efforts to protect trademark terminology, including the terms Final Four, March Madness, NCAA, and even Big Dance. This leaves few ways for downtown Indianapolis businesses to squawk about one of the biggest sporting events around.

"It just takes all the fun out of it for us," said Brad Everett, manager of the Rock Bottom Brewery. "It's almost ridiculous how many things are on the list that we can't say or do."

The NCAA also has asked the city to enforce a downtown "clean zone." That means no street vendors, strict enforcement of unlicensed product sales and no hanging of signs or banners -- unless they're the $50-a-pop, NCAA-sanctioned ones sold by the local Final Four committee. A city ordinance passed in 1995 requires the downtown area to accommodate certain requests in order to attract high-profile events like the Final Four. "The city obviously benefits a great deal from these events," said Steve Campbell, a spokesman for Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson.

Oscar Bowl LXXII?

HOLLYWOOD (NYT) -- The 72nd annual Academy Awards show is looking a lot like a Super Sunday, and not just because that's the day the ceremony is now held. The Oscar presentation on ABC has traditionally been the second biggest day of the year for advertising, trailing only the Super Bowl. This year, though, that gridiron-style hoopla and hyperbole has permeated the broadcast to the point where the network ought to bill it as "Oscar Bowl LXXII."