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URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: EDITORIALS & OPINIONS (90%); POLITICAL PARTIES (78%); HEADS OF STATE & GOVERNMENT (78%); POLITICS (77%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (76%); LEGISLATIVE BODIES (73%); ORGANIZED CRIME (68%); WORLD WAR II (52%); MIDDLE INCOME PERSONS (74%) Terms not available from NYTimes PERSON: VLADIMIR PUTIN (92%) GEOGRAPHIC: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (92%) RUSSIA (96%); FRANCE (88%); UNITED STATES (79%); EUROPE (79%); WESTERN EUROPE (58%) LOAD-DATE: February 9, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH DOCUMENT-TYPE: Op-Ed PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1155 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Who Pays to Stop a Pandemic? BYLINE: By Ruth R. Faden, Patrick S. Duggan and Ruth Karron. Ruth R. Faden is the executive director and Patrick S. Duggan is the research coordinator of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. Ruth Karron is the director of the Center for Immunization Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. SECTION: Section A; Column 2; Editorial Desk; Pg. 19 LENGTH: 694 words DATELINE: BALTIMORE BIRD flu has not yet turned into a pandemic, but it is already killing the meager hopes of some of the world's poorest people for a marginally better life. When poultry become infected with the deadly strain of avian influenza (H5N1), it is essential that all birds nearby be culled to prevent further spread. We all stand to benefit from this important pandemic prevention strategy, recommended by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Unfortunately, however, the world's poor are unfairly shouldering the burden of the intervention. Last month officials in Jakarta, Indonesia, announced a ban on household farming of poultry there. The domestic bird population of Jakarta is estimated at 1.3 million. Thousands of families were given until Feb. 1 to consume, sell or kill their birds. Now inspectors are going door to door to destroy any remaining birds. The Indonesian government pledged to pay about $1.50 for each bird infected with the H5N1 virus, a sum that may approximate the bird's fair market value. But most birds that have been killed under this policy are healthy, so their owners, most reports suggest, will receive nothing. Moreover, it is not clear how Jakarta's poor will replace the income they once received from chickens and other birds. When officials impose widespread culling, industrial-scale poultry producers -- like the company that owns the large British turkey farm where bird flu was found this month -- usually have the resources to absorb the losses. But when the birds of small-scale poultry farmers are culled, entrepreneurs who were just beginning to move up the development ladder can be plunged right back into poverty. The most dependent and vulnerable members of the community become even more dependent and vulnerable. ''Backyard birds'' are the only source of income for many women and children. Families whose birds are found to be infected with the virus may suffer even more. People in Cambodia, China and India whose poultry have been blamed for avian influenza outbreaks have often been subject to extreme stigma and isolation, and there have even been reports of suicides by desperate farmers. It is inevitable that the world's poor will suffer most from a pandemic. A recent article in The Lancet predicted that if the next pandemic were to mimic the huge 1918 flu outbreak, 96 percent of an estimated 62 million deaths would occur in developing countries. But specific steps can and should be taken now to prevent or mitigate the injustices that are already occurring. We are part of a group of 24 government officials, public health experts and scientists from 11 countries who recently met in Bellagio, Italy, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation to call attention to how pandemic planning affects the world's disadvantaged. We created a checklist for avian influenza control that explicitly calls on the authorities to compensate people who suffer losses from bird-culling programs, regardless of whether the destroyed birds are infected with the avian influenza virus. Such a program in Jakarta alone would be expensive. Just to compensate families for their culled birds would require nearly $2 million, not including the cost of administering the program. Indonesia's domestic bird population countrywide is estimated at 300 million, so if the culling program were to be expanded beyond Jakarta, the total compensation cost could run as high as $450 million. Indonesia's avian influenza budget for the coming year is reported to be less than $50 million. Clearly, without donor assistance, the government cannot afford to compensate families and farmers fairly. So the burden of pandemic prevention must also fall on the world's wealthy nations. Last year, the United States, the European Union and other nations pledged more than $2 billion to the global war chest for avian influenza response. Developing a program to compensate poor families in countries with limited resources is an enormous challenge. But it is time that the money pledged by the donor countries reach the people who are already the first victims of the next pandemic.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1156 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final A Milanese Company Founded by Architects Turns On Its Lights in SoHo BYLINE: By MELISSA FELDMAN SECTION: Section F; Column 2; House & Home/Style Desk; CURRENTS: ILLUMINATION; Pg. 3 LENGTH: 132 words Add another name to the list of Italian design firms like Kartell and Flou that have shops on Greene Street in SoHo: Luceplan, a Milanese lighting company founded in 1978 by the architects Riccardo Sarfatti, Sandra Severi and Paolo Rizzatto, opened its first store in New York yesterday, bottom left. The interior, below, was designed by another Italian architect, Alessandro Scandurra, and uses simple white boxes to display light fixtures like the Birzi ($115), a flexible table lamp made of silicone; the Costanza table lamp ($475), bottom right; and the new Grande Costanza ($1,300, available by special order), an adjustable floor lamp version with a truly grand maximum height of 92 inches. Luceplan, 49 Greene Street (Broome Street), (212) 966-1399, www.luceplanusa.com. MELISSA FELDMAN URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: ARCHITECTURAL SERVICES (90%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (90%); LAMP & LIGHTING STORES (88%); LIGHTING EQUIPMENT MFG (88%) Lighting ORGANIZATION: Luceplan (NYC Lighting Store) PERSON: Melissa Feldman GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (72%) NEW YORK, USA (91%) UNITED STATES (91%) New York City LOAD-DATE: February 8, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: Photos (Photographs by Donna Alberico for The New York Times) PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1157 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final House Committee to Examine Recent Performance of S.B.A. BYLINE: By RON NIXON SECTION: Section C; Column 1; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 7 LENGTH: 712 words A House committee is holding the first of several hearings today to discuss the Small Business Administration, an agency that has come under criticism for its disaster relief program in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, as well as its operating, lending and contracting practices. Representative Nydia M. Velasquez, Democrat of New York and chairwoman of the House Small Business Committee, said that the hearings would look into other issues, including recent disclosures that federal investigators have accused a lender in an S.B.A. program of falsifying information on 76 loans with a value of nearly $77 million over six years. The administrator, Steven C. Preston, is scheduled to appear at today's hearing, which will also address budget and staffing issues. An internal memo prepared by the agency's chief financial officer in January said that the S.B.A. had dropped below its minimal staffing levels because of budget shortfalls. Since 2001, the budget has declined by more than 37 percent. But the agency announced Monday that its 2008 budget request is a 5 percent increase over its 2006 budget. The 2007 budget for the agency was not passed. ''This is a very different budget than what you've seen in recent years,'' Mr. Preston said in an interview. ''We will have money to run the agency and expand on what we do, including hiring new people.'' But Ms. Velasquez said the figures actually showed a decline. ''In fact, the request cuts funding for a number of the agency's core programs, including initiatives that provide technical assistance for low-income entrepreneurs, business development for minorities and contracting opportunities in distressed areas of the country,'' Ms. Velasquez said in a statement. President Bush's fiscal year 2008 operating budget for the agency is $464 million, down from $624 million last fiscal year, she said. Michael L. Stamler, a spokesman for the S.B.A., said that the agency compared its new budget request with the 2006 budget because it was the last time a budget was passed. Mr. Stamler also said that although budget documents show the agency's budget dropping from $533 million in 2006 to $463 million in the 2008 request, almost $90 million of the 2006 funds were what is known as earmarks. ''These are items inserted into the budget by lawmakers,'' Mr. Stamler said. ''These are dollars that are designated for specific projects in their home districts. This is not money to fund the operation of the S.B.A.'' A spokeswoman for Ms. Velasquez said the committee would question Mr. Preston about the differing views of the budget. The S.B.A. under Mr. Preston, who took over the agency in July, has taken steps to address much of the criticism of the agency. Mr. Preston announced several initiatives during a news conference last week. First, he said, the agency has revamped its disaster loan program by assigning a case manager to each borrower and added plans to enlist the private sector in case of another Katrina-like disaster. Also, to ensure that companies receiving small-business contracts are actually small, the S.B.A. recently adopted a rule to require businesses to recertify their size as genuinely small after the fifth year of a contract and immediately when a company changes ownership. Mr. Preston said the new rule would make federal contract reporting more relevant and increase opportunities for small businesses by encouraging federal contracting officers to expand their search for qualified contractors. The agency is also working with the Office of Management and Budget to fix coding errors in the federal database of contracts. All federal agencies have been asked to review all 2005 and 2006 small-business contracting information for accuracy. The S.B.A. is establishing a program to help contracting offices better identify qualified small businesses. The agency also intends to hire additional workers to help with oversight of contracting. While giving Mr. Preston credit for his efforts so far, Ms. Velasquez says she still intends to provide aggressive oversight of the agency. ''We look forward to working with the agency to address these issues, whether S.B.A. can do that on its own,'' she said, ''or if Congress needs to step in, that remains to be seen.'' URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: SMALL BUSINESS (91%); HURRICANES (90%); HURRICANE KATRINA (90%); SMALL BUSINESS ASSISTANCE (90%); SMALL BUSINESS LENDING (90%); DISASTER RELIEF (89%); BUDGET (89%); MINORITY BUSINESS ASSISTANCE (89%); WEATHER (78%); PUBLIC FINANCE (78%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (78%); LEGISLATORS (78%); INTERVIEWS (77%); INVESTIGATIONS (77%); GOVERNMENT BUDGETS (76%); FRAUD & FINANCIAL CRIME (76%); RECRUITMENT & HIRING (74%); US DEMOCRATIC PARTY (72%); ETHICS (71%); PRESS CONFERENCES (67%); CONTRACTS & BIDS (65%); LOW INCOME PERSONS (64%) Small Business; Hurricanes and Tropical Storms; Katrina (Storm); Frauds and Swindling; Ethics; Finances; Budgets and Budgeting; Labor; Small Business; Credit ORGANIZATION: SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (91%) Small Business Administration PERSON: Nydia M (Rep) Velasquez; Steven C Preston; Ron Nixon GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES (79%) United States LOAD-DATE: February 8, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1158 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final TAKEOVER BATTLE ENDS WITH SALE OF BIG LANDLORD BYLINE: By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and TERRY PRISTIN SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1 LENGTH: 1686 words ''Roses are red, violets are blue; I hear a rumor, is it true?'' That strained line of poetry set off the fiercest buyout battle since the epic contest for RJR Nabisco in the late 1980s, a struggle that was captured in the book ''Barbarians at the Gate.'' The line, written by the real estate mogul Samuel Zell in an e-mail message last month, invited a rival bid topping a $48.50 a share offer for his Equity Office Properties, the biggest office landlord in the nation, with buildings in Manhattan, Chicago, Atlanta and other major cities. The reply: ''Roses are red, violets are blue. I love you Sam, our bid is 52.'' The rhyme was true, but the comeback was not good enough. The private equity giant Blackstone Group, which was the initial bidder, won the bidding war for Equity Office yesterday with an offer of $55.50 a share, or $39 billion. The takeover battle, perhaps the most entertaining of recent years because of the big financial players -- and big egos -- involved, was called ''New York at the Gate,'' because it pitted two very different New York financiers against each other: Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone, the leading figure in Manhattan's financial and charity circuit in recent years, and Steven Roth of Vornado, the onetime strip mall king of New Jersey. The deal for Equity Office encapsulates two of the hottest trends in deal-making: the wave of capital flooding into commercial real estate and the growing power of private money. While residential real estate has slowed, commercial real estate, office buildings in particular, looks more attractive as the market finally shakes off the effects of the burst technology bubble in 2000. Many investors expect office vacancy rates to continue to decline in the next couple of years, with a corresponding rise in rents. And private equity firms like Blackstone have been among some of the most aggressive investors in commercial real estate. These firms have accumulated huge war chests: even now Blackstone is raising a new $10 billion real estate fund. The surge in buyouts -- which accounted for a fifth of the record $3.8 trillion in deals last year -- shows no sign of slowing. The Equity Office deal is the biggest leveraged private equity buyout ever, surpassing last summer's $32 billion deal for the hospital chain HCA, which itself was the first to surpass the previous high-water mark, the $30 billion deal for RJR Nabisco. Memories of that earlier contest were much on the minds of the bidders for Equity Office. At internal meetings when Blackstone would debate how to counter Vornado, Mr. Schwarzman would remind his bankers: ''We don't want to be K.K.R.,'' referring to the buyout of RJR Nabisco that turned out a disappointment to Mr. Schwarzman's archrival, Henry R. Kravis of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company. ''We need to remember this is just another deal,'' Mr. Schwarzman said, according to people close to the firm. Blackstone had a huge incentive to make the deal. The firm will pay itself an ''acquisition fee'' worth about half of 1 percent of the deal -- the equivalent of about $200 million just for winning the auction, no matter how well the investment turns out. (Blackstone is not alone. Its advisers, Goldman Sachs and the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, will also earn millions of dollars in fees.) And Blackstone will waste no time disposing of some of its newly acquired assets, taking advantage of the hot Manhattan real estate market. All but one of Equity Office's eight buildings in New York -- the Verizon building at 42nd Street and the Avenue of the Americas -- are expected to be sold to Harry Macklowe for about $7 billion, some simultaneously with Friday's closing. Blackstone was a winner, but Mr. Zell, 65, a raspy-voiced tycoon with a penchant for doggerel, music boxes and Ducati motorcycles, was an even bigger one. Even his detractors are saying he ran a masterly sale, encouraging a bidding war that drove up the price for Equity Office by $3 billion. Mr. Zell stands to make more than $130 million on his shares and options in the company. ''When Sam steps into the prime decision-making role,'' said Timothy H. Callahan, a former chief executive of Equity Office, ''no one is better able to be strategic. That's what shareholders have seen in the past, and that's why he will continue to wear the mantle as one of the leading lights of real estate.'' It may have helped that Mr. Zell knew the bidders so well. As he said in an interview yesterday, ''This was like a family outing in the Turkish bath.'' The son of Jewish immigrants who fled Poland hours before the Nazi invasion, Mr. Zell grew up in Chicago. He showed an entrepreneurial streak at an early age, buying issues of Playboy magazine from newsstand vendors and selling them at a marked-up price to his friends. Mr. Zell first made his fortune in the 1970s by buying distressed real estate and fixing it up, earning him the nickname ''the grave dancer.'' In contrast to real estate moguls like Donald J. Trump, he shied away from trophy buildings, preferring strong financials to prestige. With his branding and financial acumen, he was one of the first to transform commercial real estate from a local affair to a national business. But a year ago, his company was selling for $29 a share. After several missteps, including buying $7.2 billion worth of Silicon Valley property just before the technology bust, Mr. Zell's reputation as the sage of the real estate industry was in serious jeopardy. Now the sale has restored his reputation. The battle for Equity Office started much earlier than any headline suggested. Last July, Mr. Roth secretly proposed merging Vornado with Equity Office to Mr. Zell. The two friends began negotiating back and forth for months. Not long after, Jonathan D. Gray, a 37-year-old rising star within Blackstone's real estate group, took Equity Office's president, Richard D. Kincaid, for breakfast at the Peninsula New York hotel in Midtown Manhattan. After small talk, Mr. Gray, who looks even younger than his age despite a 5 o'clock shadow, asked whether Equity Office's board would ever consider selling the company. Mr. Kincaid told him: ''If you came with a 'Godfather' price the board would have to listen.'' Two months later, Mr. Gray, calling from his wood-paneled office on the 32nd floor of Blackstone's headquarters on Park Avenue, asked Equity Office's banker at Merrill Lynch, Douglas W. Sesler: ''What would a Godfather price be?'' A price that could not be refused, he was told, would be at least $45 and closer to $50. In November, Blackstone reached a deal with Equity Office for $48.50 a share, and the assumption of $16 billion in debt, for a total of $36 billion. The deal by Blackstone floored Mr. Roth, who had been kept in the dark. Despite the huge price tag, industry insiders thought it was remarkably low. Barry S. Sternlicht, the founder of Starwood Hotels and chairman of Starwood Capital, called the deal ''the greatest heist of all time'' on a panel at a Bear Stearns conference last fall. Vornado's president, Michael D. Fascitelli, was also on that panel. Mr. Roth decided to mount a new bid. He reached out to several possible partners, including General Electric and Cerberus Capital Management, among others, according to people involved in the process. Vornado was interested in owning Equity Offices properties in major markets, but was looking to sell properties in ancillary markets. Mr. Sternlicht and Neil Bluhm, a Chicago real estate mogul who was Mr. Sternlicht's mentor in the late 1980s, approached Mr. Roth before Christmas about working together and buying those ancillary properties. They declared war on Jan. 18, lobbing in a bid of $52 a share. Mr. Schwarzman and Mr. Gray scrambled to salvage their deal. They negotiated to increase their offer to $54 a share if Equity Office would raise the breakup fee to $500 million, from $200 million. Mr. Roth, holed up in his office above Penn Station with expansive views of Manhattan, plotted return fire. A week later, Vornado bid $56 a share in cash and stock. While it was a higher offer, it also was much less certain because some of the payment was in stock and it would take months to be completed compared with Blackstone's bid, which could be completed this week. Equity Office, which was advised by Merrill Lynch and the law firm of Sidley Austin, said it would still back Blackstone and set a shareholder vote for yesterday. Mr. Roth spent the weekend considering his options. He did not want to raise his bid, thinking that paying more than $56 a share was too much. And Blackstone had exercised its right to prevent Vornado from talking to Equity Office or having access to electronic data about the company. But he needed to do something. Flanked by his advisers, including James. B. Lee of JPMorgan Chase and Mark G. Shafir of Lehman Brothers, they decided to fire another shot on Sunday night. Vornado would not pay more, but it agreed to pay a larger cash portion and pay it much more quickly, making its bid more attractive. The new offer hit the tape just as the Super Bowl started. Mr. Gray of Blackstone, a Chicago native who had given up his seats to the game to stay in New York, missed seeing a remarkable kickoff return by the Chicago Bears as he jumped on the phone to strategize about what to do. The next day, Blackstone went to Equity Office with a new bid of $55.25 a share. Mr. Zell asked for another 25 cents; in exchange, the breakup fee was increased to $720 million. And then everyone waited for Mr. Roth's response. But there was none. Blackstone had won. By chance yesterday morning, Mr. Zell and Mr. Roth found themselves having separate breakfast meetings at the Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It was 7:30 a.m., nearly two hours before Vornado would say that it was out of the race. Barred by Equity Office's agreement with Blackstone from having a conversation before the vote, Mr. Zell said he smiled at Mr. Roth. Mr. Roth smiled back. ''I love you, Stevie,'' Mr. Zell said. 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