NEES unit buying Texas-Ohio Gas
WALTHAM – AllEnergy Marketing Company, LLC, the energy marketing subsidiary of the New England Electric System, has announced an agreement to buy Texas-Ohio Gas, Inc., from e-prime, the energy marketing subsidiary of New Century Energies. Texas-Ohio operates in 12 Northeastern states, providing natural gas, electricity, fuel oil, propane and other products to its customers. Specific terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Harvard Health boosting co-pays for some drugs
BROOKLINE – Harvard Pilgrim Health Care announced that it will start charging higher co-payments for some prescriptions to most of its subscribers starting January 1. While not specifying the increase in the co-payments, the Harvard Pilgrim spokesman said they would resemble those announced recently by its rival Tufts Health Plan. The HMO’s medical director announced in April that the company was considering a three-tier co-payment program. Harvard Pilgrim announced it had spent $300 million on prescription medicines in 1998, a 17 percent increase from the previous year.
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Blue Cross dropping 57 brand-name drugs
BOSTON — Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts announced that it will end coverage of 57 prescription drugs from its list starting September 1. The action is seen as the latest effort by HMOs to reduce costs. Blue Cross-Blue Shield said it will continue to cover 3,500 drugs, including Prozac, which Fallon Community Health Plan announced earlier it would no longer be covering.
Women & Enterprise Center opens
BOSTON – The Center for Women & Enterprise opened its new offices recently in Renaissance Park in this city’s Empowerment Zone. The Center hopes to expand its reach beyond the city proper throughout the region with a goal of serving 1,500 entrepreneurs in 2000. CW&E has been providing business assistance and resources to women entrepreneurs since 1995, including courses, workshops, mentoring and networking.
Raytheon aircraft gets $2 billion order
LEXINGTON – Raytheon Co. announced that it had obtained a $2 billion order from Executive Jet Inc. for 100 of Raytheon’s Hawker Horizon jets. Executive Jet, the world’s largest seller of partial ownership in business jets, has ordered 50 Hawker Horizons for delivery beginning in 2002, with an option for purchase of 50 more. Raytheon said it was the biggest business jet order ever for its aviation division. Executive Jets is owned by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Raytheon announces 61 more layoffs in Andover
ANDOVER – Raytheon Co. announced that it will lay off 61 more employees from a plant here because of dwindling demand for satellite components. Employment for 31 hourly and 30 salaried workers from the company’s Advanced Device center facility will end next week, a company spokesman said. No severance terms were released. The company, which employs more than 13,000 workers throughout the state been criticized recently because of layoffs which are considered violations of the spirit of an agreement it reached with the state legislature for tax reductions in 1995.
Lauriat’s succumbs to superstores, Internet
BOSTON – Lauriat’s Inc., after 127 years of selling books, is closing its chain of 71 stores and liquidating, a victim of the competition from the mega book store chains, the Internet, and its own undercapitalization. The company received a loan two months ago that was designed to enable the company to reposition itself as an old fashioned service oriented book seller. But finally, Lauriat’s a unit of CMI Holdings, Inc., announced that it had run out of money to accomplish what it hoped to do and was unable to attract more investors.
Vanguard group picking up Tufts patients
BROOKLINE – Vanguard Medical Associates, the largest physician group practice in New England, has reached agreement with Tufts Health Plan to provide care to its 860,000 members. Vanguard was spun off Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in 1998 and was limited in its care almost exclusively to the members of that HMO. As a result, its patient base was either diminishing or not growing as patients changed or lost jobs and their health coverage as a result. Vanguard, with its 500 doctors in 14 offices and health centers throughout eastern Massachusetts now has a patient care base of 295,000 in the region. The agreement with Tufts, the state’s second largest HMO, will not only benefit Vanguard, but also Tufts since it will provide competition with existing physician care services and presumably enable Tufts to trim its costs.
Power plants offered for sale
NORTH DARTMOUTH – Energy Management, Inc. has announced that it will try to sell five gas-generated power plants, three of them existing, the other two under construction. The proposal, which is being handled by Fieldstone Services Corp., is seen as an attempt by EMI management to maximize the profitability of the plants by selling them now when demand for them is at its peak. The existing plants are in Pawtucket, R.I., Dartmouth and Dighton, Mass. The plants under construction are in Tiverton, R.I., and Rumford, Maine. General Electric owns half of the Pawtucket and Dartmouth plants and reportedly wants to sell its share as well. The combined plants would produce 840 megawatts, enough to supply about 4 percent of New England’s needs.
WESTBORO – Jeremy Facher, an attorney for Hale & Dorr, who was portrayed by Robert Duvall in the film, A Civil Action will be the keynote speaker at an environmental conference here tomorrow (June 22) sponsored by The New England Council. Facher’s topic is entitled “A Trial Lawyer’s Comments on ‘A Civil Action.'”
The conference will focus on federal regulatory and legislative developments which have an impact on the New England region. Facher successfully defended Beatrice Foods Corporation against charges that the company was responsible for deaths and severe injuries resulting from contamination of two public drinking wells in Woburn, Mass. The film resulted from a book by the same name that was written by Jonathon Harr.
