Saturday, May 25, 2013

News Briefs

Posted in:
Magazine Edition
: March 2007
Business Loans
The Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone and Acción, a leading microfinance organization, launched a $5.5 million loan fund dedicated to small businesses and entrepreneurs located in Upper Manhattan. Administered by Acción, the reduced interest rate loans will be offered to businesses with a special emphasis on the communities in Washington Heights and Inwood. The subsidized loan capital is made possible through a $1 million grant from UMEZ, matched by Acción with additional loan capital from Banco Popular, JPMorgan Chase and TD Bank USA. Umez also committed a separate $500,000 loan. For more information, call 212-387-0494.

Bond Transaction
AT&T said it will include Utendahl Capital Group and The Williams Capital Group to serve as lead managers, along with Bank of America, for a bond transaction that will add another $500 million to an outstanding bond maturing in 2016. The bond originally issued by AT&T in 2004 and was initially sized at $750 million. AT&T's inclusion of the two minority-owned financial services firms as lead managers in the bond offering reportedly moves the financial services industry one step closer to having more than 5 percent participation of qualified minority-owned firms on these transactions. In 2000, AT&T broke the glass ceiling and set a precedent in the financial services sector by naming a minority firm, Blaylock and Company, as co-manager on a billion-dollar equity offering.

Ebony Cards
Johnson Publishing Co., the world's largest Black-owned publishing company and home of Ebony magazine, formed a partnership with American Greetings to create greeting cards for the newly developed Ebony Inspirations brand. Johnson Publishing said the venture represents the first of many that will feature the Ebony brand. The first series of Ebony Inspirations greetings cards debuted Feb. 1, in time for Black History Month, in Wal-Mart, Jewel-Osco, CVS, Eckerd, Rite Aid and Kmart stores. The cards honor famous African-Americans from all walks of life.

RLJ Acquisition
RLJ Lodging Fund II L.P., an affiliate of RLJ Development L.L.C. controlled by Robert L. Johnson, founder of BET and owner of the NBA Charlotte Bobcats, acquired the New York LaGuardia Airport Marriott hotel from LaSalle Hotel Properties for $69 million. The acquisition marks RLJ's entrance into the New York City lodging market. RLJ Fund II plans to spend $11.5 million in renovating and repositioning the hotel, with emphasis on upgrading the property's guestroom product. Marriott International will retain management of the hotel. RLJ Lodging’s portfolio now stands at 120 hotels and nearly 17,000 guestrooms.

Real Men Cook Coffee®
Real Men Cook®, producer of the national Father’s Day celebrations, launched its exclusive brand of premium coffee, Real Men Cook Coffee®. The specialty brand uses only100 percent Arabica beans grown in the East African nation of Uganda. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of Real Men Cook Coffee® will go to three key Real Men Cook humanitarian programs: the Prostate Health Program; the Male Involvement Program for children without the experience of being fathered; and the Beyond Fair Trade Program aimed at providing above-market prices to Ugandan coffee farmers, as well as funds for social programs in their communities. The coffee complements the Real Men Cook Sweet Potato Pound Cake Mix®.

Pan-Hellenic Deal
The Converse Shoe Co. and the nine historic African-American fraternities and sororities that make up the National Pan-Hellenic Council entered into a long-term licensing agreement and multi-part business opportunity to dismiss a trademark infringement lawsuit filed in 2003 by six of the organizations. The licensing agreement enables Converse to manufacture, distribute and sell footwear featuring the trademarks of these organizations. Converse will pay the organizations a percentage of the gross revenue on every product it sells that bears the trademark of the organizations. Converse also will host summer internships to college and university students from these organizations beginning June 2007.

Franchise Coup
Miami real estate entrepreneur Kemp Johnson acquired a 24Seven franchise (www.24seven.com) and with it the lucrative rights to operate the vending machines at Dolphin Stadium in Miami ahead of this year’s Super Bowl. A recent graduate of the University of Rochester in New York and Clark-Atlanta University’s M.B.A program, Johnson responded to a diversity outreach initiative launched in October by 24Seven launched in October, offering franchisees territories with pre-sited snack and soda vending machines. Other franchises are available in 19 states, including New York, New Jersey, Florida, California, Florida, Georgia, and Washington, D.C., 24Seven said.

Construction Rating Tool
The Forino Report, (www.forinoreport.com), which provides up to-date credit report histories for general contractors and commercial developers, launched an online credit-rating tool to allow subcontractors in the building trades to search for information about negligent practices of general contractors. Participating subcontractors file reports on their past job experiences with general contractors, which are used to assign a “Forino” score between zero and 500 to the contractors. Subscribers to the site can access these scores and use them as a basis for calculating bids for contractors, bidding high for high-risk contractors and offering discounts to contractors who pay in full and on time.

Supplier Diversity Inequities
Charity Guide launched a national campaign to encourage African-American entrepreneurship by mobilizing corporate employees to pursue greater supplier-diversity fairness in centralized and decentralized purchasing processes. Funded by a grant from Electronic Knowledge Interchange, Charity Guide's campaign urges corporations to award at least 13 percent of the budget in each spending-category to Black-owned firms; require budget managers to go beyond their personal networks to find top quality Black-owned businesses; do business directly with Black-owned businesses, not through intermediaries; extend the same respect to Black entrepreneurs as to others; fire under-performing Black-owned firms but seek another Black-owned firm to take their place.

Women Scientists
African-American scientists Marjorie Gatlin, M.D., vice president of U.S. Clinical Development and Medical Affairs for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., and Michelle Baron, M.D., Novartis’ senior medical director, are behind Galvus®, a new drug for the treatment of Type-2 Diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Association, diabetes currently affects approximately 195 million people worldwide, a number expected to surpass 330 million by 2025. Type-2 Diabetes is also the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. While Dr. Gatlin led the team that developed the drug, Dr. Baron played a key role in ensuring that clinical trials consisted of minorities.

HIV Vaccine
U.S. and South African researchers launched the first large-scale study to evaluate a candidate HIV vaccine on the African continent. The trial will involve up to 3,000 participants at five sites in South Africa and is expected to continue for four years. The sites are part of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, which is headquartered at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and supported through a cooperative agreement with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. The trial sites also receive funding from the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative
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