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Business Digest
Starbucks CEO sells stocks, earns almost $24 million

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Smith exercised options to buy 999,900 Starbucks shares on Jan. 30, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He sold all the shares the same day. It was his first sale since June 2002, according to SEC data compiled by the Washington Service.

Executives can't sell around the time the company reports monthly revenue or quarterly earnings, Starbucks spokeswoman Lara Wyss said.

"Starbucks executives will occasionally take the opportunity to raise cash during selling windows, as stock options are a significant part of their overall compensation package," Wyss said in an e-mail.

The options enabled Smith to buy Starbucks shares at $11.63 to $14.80 each. Smith sold the shares in the open market for $36.26 each, realizing profits of $23.59 million, the SEC filing said.

Starbucks shares rose more than 61 percent during the past 52 weeks.

Health-services firm to open call center staffed by nurses

SEATTLE — American Healthways, a Nashville-based health-services company, will open a telephone center staffed by nurses next month in Bellevue.

American Healthways has contracted with Regence BlueShield to answer questions from patients who suffer chronic conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease. The nurses also will make calls to patients to help them manage their disease.

Initially, about 65 people, mostly nurses, will work at the 30,000-square-foot "care-enhancement center" at the Eastgate-area Sunset Corporate Campus.

Kriste Goad, spokeswoman for American Healthways, said the company plans to employ more than 200 people locally within the next two years. The company has already hired the initial employees.

It is the first American Healthways care-enhancement center in the area and the eighth such center nationwide.

Developer inks deal to build outlet mall on Tulalip land

EVERETT — Mall developer Chelsea Property Group yesterday signed a 30-year lease agreement with the Tulalip Tribes and will begin construction this spring on a 120-store outlet mall on 47 acres of tribal land.

The long-expected mall project will employ 300 during its yearlong construction phase, which starts this spring. Once the mall opens in 2005, it will employ between 1,200 and 2,000, said tribal Vice Chairman Stan Jones. It could draw as many as 6 million shoppers annually.

Chelsea has built other shopping centers in North Bend, the Portland area and in Japan.

Boeing cuts 300 jobs at Texas maintenance plant

SAN ANTONIO — Boeing announced yesterday that it is cutting 300 jobs at its aircraft-maintenance facility in San Antonio.

Some workers at the sprawling plant on the former Kelly Air Force Base said layoff rumors had been circulating, but the cuts still caught them by surprise.

Boeing officials said the layoffs — including managers, administrative workers, mechanics and shop laborers — are largely a result of cutbacks in aircraft-maintenance work it performs for the Air Force at the plant.

The company does maintenance and systems-upgrade work in San Antonio on Air Force C-17 cargo transports and the KC-10 and KC-135 aerial-refueling planes.

After the layoffs, Boeing's local work force will be 1,600 employees, the company said.

Bon-Macy's division chief promoted to New York store

CINCINNATI — Federated Department Stores said yesterday that Eric Salus, president of its Seattle-based Bon-Macy's division, was promoted to head the new New York-based Macy's Home Store organization.

Salus, 50, came to Seattle from Macy's East last year to succeed Peter Sachse as Bon president when the longtime local department store changed its name to The Bon-Macy's from The Bon Marché.

Graphics-software firm Creo is closing office in Lynnwood

EVERETT — Canadian graphics-software company Creo will close its Lynnwood office this year as part of a company-wide restructuring initiative, a spokeswoman said yesterday.

The closure will affect 28 employees, she said, but added not all will lose their jobs because Creo wants to relocate some workers to its Vancouver, B.C., headquarters. The company employs 4,000 and will cut a total of 100 positions from offices in Lynnwood, Israel and Canada, she said.

Creo announced yesterday that it posted sales of $154.9 million in the first quarter ended Dec. 31, up 9 percent from $142.8 million in the year-earlier period. Its profit rose to $12.3 million, or 24 cents a share, from the year-earlier $1.5 million, or 3 cents a share.

Microsoft repels attack from Mydoom.B virus

SEATTLE — Microsoft said it had fought off an attempted software-virus attack yesterday that was aimed at shutting down some of the company's Web sites.

Stephen Toulouse, a security-program manager for Microsoft, said the company's Web sites ran normally throughout the day.

The virus, called Mydoom.B, was programmed to launch an attack on Microsoft's site yesterday, two days after a variant shut down the Web site of The SCO Group, a small Utah software company.

Security experts said the Mydoom.B variant was spreading much less quickly than Mydoom.A, the version that attacked SCO Group.

Nation/World

Earnings fall, but profit up during second quarter for Cisco

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Cisco Systems' earnings fell in the second quarter because of an accounting change, but the networking giant's profit and sales exceeded Wall Street expectations as businesses around the world loosened their purse strings.

Company officials expressed confidence yesterday in Cisco's performance and, more cautiously, the improving global economy as spending starts to increase after years of decline.

For the three months ended Jan. 24, Cisco earned $724 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with $991 million, or 14 cents per share in the same period last year.

Without special items, including a $567 million charge for an accounting change, the company earned $1.3 billion, or 18 cents per share, compared with $1.1 billion, or 15 cents per share, in the same period last year.

Cisco share gained 21 cents to $26.41 yesterday.

Prosecution rests case in Tyco larceny trial

NEW YORK — After nearly four months of witness testimony, prosecutors in New York rested their larceny case against Tyco International's former top executives.

L. Dennis Kozlowski, Tyco's former chief executive, and Mark Swartz, its former financial chief, went on trial Sept. 29 in New York State Supreme Court on charges they improperly used Tyco funds to enrich themselves and others.

Earlier yesterday, Judge Michael Obus ruled that the jury can view Kozlowski's divorce agreement from his first wife after prosecutors argued a hefty payment to his ex-wife could be a motive for alleged larceny.

Separately, Tyco yesterday reported its biggest quarterly net income in two years because of cost cuts and currency gains.

Net income for the quarter ended Dec. 31 rose to $719.2 million, or 34 cents a share, from profit from continuing operations of $565.9 million, or 28 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose 8.7 percent to $9.7 billion from $8.93 billion, the Bermuda-based conglomerate said in a statement.

Tyco was expected to have first-quarter profit of 32 cents a share, the average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. Its shares rose 70 cents to $27.80.

GE's ex-CEO expands relationship with editor

SAN FRANCISCO — General Electric's former chief executive, Jack Welch, will write a book with former Harvard Business Review editor Suzy Wetlaufer, whose affair with Welch preceded his divorce last year.

The book will be titled "Winning" and will be published in early 2005, News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers said in a statement.

Compiled from Seattle Times business staff, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and Dow Jones Newswires

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company