Corrections or additions?
These articles were prepared for the April 4, 2001 edition of U.S.
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Sold to SES Global: GE Americom
A company in Luxembourg has bought GE American
Communications,
the satellite operations company, for $5 billion in cash and stock.
That includes $2.7 billion in cash, a 25 percent stake, and a 20
percent
voting interest in the new company, to be called SES Global. None
of GE Americom’s 325 employees — including 200 on Research Way
— are expected to be laid off.
GE Americom has 17 satellites, and its core business is transmission
support for cable and television, radio broadcast, and data services.
It had $522 million in revenue last year, and its chief investor,
GE Capital, is based in Stamford, Connecticut. Lockheed Martin and
Alcatel manufacture the firm’s satellites.
The buyer, Society Europeene des Satellites SA, has been looking for
an American partner for more than a year; it focuses on direct-to-home
transmissions and has 41 communications satellites — 11 wholly
owned — in space. It has revenues of $740.94 million and serves
87.5 million European households.
GE’s satellites are in a geosynchronous orbit mode at 22,500 miles
around the earth. Its clients are broadcasters, cable, NYT, federal
government agencies, and major radio broadcasters, but it offers some
telecommunications services, primarily in remote locations such as
Alaska and other spots where vast distances exist between population
areas. “If you are geographically dispersed, the economics of
satellite transmission play in your favor,” says Monica Morgan,
spokesperson. “It is a question of economics — what kind of
content you will send, how often, and where. A lot of companies have
found the Internet not as speedy as it needs to be, because bandwidth
is constrained by the smallest link in the chain. Whereas the
satellite
transmission can scale to your requirements at no extra cost.”
SES Global (GE Americom), 4 Research Way, Princeton08540. John F. Connelly, chairman and CEO. 609-987-4000; fax,609-987-4517.Top Of PageNonProfit Sells Shared OfficeCommunity Options is selling what was its jewel in thecrown, the Daily Plan It Office Center on Alexander Road. “Wehave a debt service of $700,000,” says Robert Stack, CEO of the1,300-person nonprofit agency on Farber Road, “and the board ofdirectors thought it would be better to find other jobs for peoplewe serve and sell the property. If somebody bought it and ran itthemselvesthey would make a nice living with it. It is very beautifully fittedout.”Five years ago, he bought and opened this shared office space in orderto employ people with disabilities. The agency paid $1,050,000 forthe space and the fit-out and it is asking $1.2 million. Tim Norrisof Callaway Commercial has the listing.The property is 7,300 square feet with “marble floors, greatparking,and the cachet of Alexander Road,” says Stack. The smallest officeis 150 square feet and the rent runs from $800 to $1,000 a month.Stack had hoped to raise $800,000 to cover the debt service on thehigh percentage mortgage, held by the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment. But only $300,000 in donations was raised. With suchheavy debt service, the center was losing $100,000 annually. Donationscomprise only three percent or $700,000 of the agency’s total budgetof $35.5 million (www.comop.org).Stack thinks a new owner could indeed make a profit, in part becauseof a favorable mortgage. “Because we are losing money we can’tget financed through any bank.” Also because, without CommunityOptions workers, the center can be run with fewer employees. By agencypolicy, each of the 16 Community Options employees earns minimum wageor better.”Our expectations with the fundraising work were not fulfilled.But we have had a significant track record of doing fundraising inother respects. If we had raised $500,000, I don’t think we wouldhave bit the bullet to sell it.” Other properties that CommunityOptions owns, he says, “we were able to negotiate variousamortizationswith various state and private entities.””If we didn’t own the mortgage, all the people could continueto work there,” says Stack. “We are working on finding themjobs in other parts of the area.”Top Of PageNew in CranburyWhen Kerzner Associates opened Cranbury Gates OfficePark last November, most of its tenants came from the Cranbury area— insurance consultants, a broker, a lab, and a professionalservicesagency. “It was leased up before it opened,” says SandyKerzner.But the project was a long time in coming. The property was bought15 years ago. “It probably 10 years to get the project approvedbecause it needed a change of zoning,” says Kerzner. Though theproperty is located at the traffic circle, it was zoned residentialand is now zoned for professional office. The spaces range from 830to 2,7000 square feet, each with its own entrance. “The wholepark is 18 acres, and eventually we will build out the rest of thepark,” he says. “We have gotten a lot of interest from daycare centers, but we didn’t want day care at the front of the park.Irving Kerzner, Sandy’s father, started in the construction businessin Jersey City 65 years ago, and the firm still does some generalconstruction, including the work for this park. Sandy Kerzner wasbrought up in West Orange, majored in business at American University,Class of 1976, and was an industrial broker. He has one brother, amarketing MBA, and is married to a preschool teacher; they have twoschool-age children.”We were the first developers in Cranbury,” says Kerzner.”Eight-A Corporate center is a 63-acre park, and we just finishedour fifth building. We could do three or four more buildings. Oursmallest tenant is 6,800 square feet, and our largest is 54,000.”The architects were Schroeder Perez in East Windsor.Kerzner Associates, 4 Corporate Drive, 8A CorporateCenter, Cranbury 08512. Sandy Kerzner, partner. 609-655-3100; fax,609-655-4801. Home page: www.kerznerassociates.com.Top Of PageEngineering MovesWhen Lockheed Martin announced it would move out ofEast Windsor, many hands were wrung. Now the aerospace company’sformersite is on the upswing. It has a new address, 50 Millstone Road, andis named Windsor Corporate Park.One of its most recent tenants is Bala Consulting Engineers, whichhas expanded from Clarksville Road to Windsor Corporate Park. Thisis a second office for the firm based in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania,and it focuses on research and development laboratories andmanufacturingprocess facilities. Michael Anastasio is the president, CEO, andfounder.One of its important clients is Merrill Lynch, and Joseph Russo wasthe project manager for Merrill Lynch’s corporate campus. GregoryDeMarco manages work for EMCORE in Somerset and Organan Inc., in WestOrange.Bala Consulting Engineers, 50 Millstone Road,WindsorCorporate Park, Building 300, Suite 100, Cranbury 08512-. GregoryJ. DeMarco PE, executive vice president. 609-490-8950; fax,609-490-8955.Home page: www.bala.com.Top Of PageJoint VentureCharles Klatskin Company Inc., 1095 Cranbury SouthRiver Road, Suite 18, Jamesburg 08831-9725. C. Robert Lonshein, seniorvice president. 732-521-1400; fax, 732-521-5879.The corporate real estate broker and developer has formed a jointventure with Binswanger CBB to provide commercial and industrial realestate brokerage, consulting, and development services. Klatzkin willkeep its Teterboro headquarters and also have an office in Edison.Charles Klatskin will be chairman and CEO; Anthony Scaro, COO; andDavid Knee, executive vice president. Two former Weichert Commercialreal estate agents, Joel Lubin and Charles Fern, will manage theEdisonoffice. The two offices currently have a total of 20 employees.Based in Philadelphia and founded in 1931, Binswanger CBB has 5,200employees worldwide and 160 offices. Binswanger/Klatskin belongs toChesterton Blumenauer Binswanger, and international full-service realestate organization.Top Of PageExpansionsRWJ University Hospital: Bristol-Myers SquibbChildren’sHospital, 1 Robert Wood Johnson Place, Somerset and High streets,New Brunswick. Steven Kairys, acting director, pediatrics department.732-828-3000. Home page: www.rwjuh.edu.The $62 million hospital is the first free-standing children’shospitalin the state. With 160,000 square feet and 70 private rooms —in which parents can sleep overnight — its pediatric servicesinclude a special intensive care unit.Top Of PageManagement MovesCrawford House Inc., 362 Sunset Road, Box 255,Skillman 08558. Barbara S. Jones MSW LCSW CADC, executive director.908-874-5153; fax, 908-874-4733.Barbara S. Jones is the new executive director of the 23-year-oldnon-profit agency. It operates transitional living programs for womenrecovering from drug and alcohol abuse. A licensed social worker anda certified alcohol and drug counselor, Jones has a master’s degreeand nearly 20 years experience in social services.Top Of PageDown-SizingExide Technologies, 214 Carnegie Center, Princeton08540. Craig Muhlhauser, president and COO. 609-919-0817; fax,609-919-4988.Home page: www.exideworld.com.Exide Technologies, a battery manufacturer with offices in CarnegieCenter, continues its ongoing downsizing in the wake of itsacquisitionof GNB Technologies. Five hundred employees will be affected as thecompany closes plants in Burlington, Iowa and Dunmore, Pennsylvania.The company previously announced the closings of two other plants.The combined reduction in its manufacturing operations reduces Exide’sautomotive battery capacity in the United States by 20 percent. Costsaving measures are also being undertaken in the company’s Europeantransportation business. They include a reorganization in the UnitedKingdom, and layoffs in Germany. Staffing at the Carnegie Center isexpected to remain unchanged.Top Of PageStart-upsClearly Speaking, 7 Holly Lane, Lawrenceville08648.Ruth Markoe and Hinda R. Haskell, co-directors. 609-895-9661; Homepage: www.clearlyspeaking.net.Hinda Haskell and Ruth Markoe have opened a consulting firm to providespeech and communications improvement for corporations and healthcareinstitutions. “We’ll concentrate on foreign accent reduction,helping people with voice quality and pronunciation, and crossculturalcommunication in the workplace,” says Haskell.Each is a speech and language pathologist with more than 20 yearsexperience. Haskell went to University of Hartford and New YorkUniversityand is based in Villanova; Markoe went to City University of New Yorkand the University of Wisconsin and is also the producer of R&RProductionsand Theater to Go. Their clientele includes, not just with foreignnationals in corporations but also physicians. “Their accentscan impact productivity, communication, and safety,” says Haskell.Haskell’s advice on what to say if communications break down. TheEnglish speaking person can say, “I know this is a second languagefor you, but I am having trouble understanding you. Can you pleaserepeat it more slowly.”Top Of PageDeathsRoland A. Munster, 60, on March 25. He had been servicesmanager at Dow Jones & Company on Route 1 North.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
