BUSINESS BEST & WORST

BARGAIN BAG

Best (Almost) Free Ride-Following an agreement to sell Greyhound Lines Inc. for $350 million to a Dallas investor group, Greyhound sponsored a special promotion in the Southeast and Southwest that was met with overwhelming response: for one hour one Wednesday in February, Greyhound sold tickets to anywhere in the United States for 59 cents.

Worst (Almost) Free Ride-In February, MBank USA made some of its MasterCard members an offer that no doubt many of them couldn’t refuse: “Because you’ve always paid on time, this month you don’t have to.” The offer to skip a payment had just one little catch-’Of course, interest will continue to accrue on your account as it normally would when you have an outstanding balance.”



DYNAMIC DUOS

Couple Most Likely to Succeed-H. Ross Perot and Steven P. Jobs. We can expect First Money Monopoly-Sunshine Mining Company’s 1987 Golden Eagle gold piece. Dallas is the headquarters for the only company in the United States that mines, refines, mints, and markets a gold coin,

bigger and better things when the founders of Electronic Data Systems Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. put their heads together in an appropriately labeled new venture-Next Inc.

Couple That Never Coupled-T. Boone Pickens Jr. and William H. Bricker. When Pick-ens came courting Diamond Shamrock it was the beginning of the end of Bill Bricker’s ten-year reign as the company’s chief executive. Bricker resigned in February 1987 after raider Pickens made his second bid for Diamond Shamrock.

FUNNY MONEY

Most Hoity-toity Tender-Crescent Coins are like gift certificates, but appropriately affected to meet the standards of that luxurious complex. The silver-plated coins, redeemable at The Shops and Galleries, make it clear that no nickel-and-diming is allowed-the lowest denomination is $10.

MERGER MANIA

Bad Marriage-The joining of Dallas-based CompuShop Inc., a chain of retail computer stores, to Bell Atlantic Corp. CompuShop’s founder Warren Winger saved the cash-starved company in 1985 when he struck what he thought was a good dealwith Bell Atlantic. Six months later, Winger was gone. Whether he quit or was fired is a subject of dispute. Winger just knows he’s no longer there and he’s not rich.

Still Honeymooners-Sanger Harris and Foley’s, Republic and InterFirst. The verdict isn’t in on how these marriages will work.

Best Marriages-#1, #2, and #3-they all go to Hicks & Haas, the Dallas investment concern that filled its shopping cart with soft drink companies last year. Their portfolio of companies reads like a soda fountain menu-Seven-Up, Dr Pepper, A&W root beer. ..



PROFIT STORIES

Loudest Way to Make a Profit-BN-G-O spells money in Texas. During the first nine months of last year. 1,800 nonprofit Bingo parlors in Texas took in $225.2 million, distributed $163.2 million in prizes, spent $28.8 million on expenses, and gave S33.3 million to charity.

Slickest Way-Grease haulers pick up more than three million : pounds of used grease from Dal- ; las-area restaurants each month. The stuff is refined into yellow grease, a substance that is mixed into cattle feed and can be used to make nitroglycerine, soap, and face cream. Yellow grease is also a commodity traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; it’s currently worth almost twice a much as crude oil.

INTERNATIONAL CITY STUFF

Something Was Lost in the Translation-The Southland Corporation’s $300 million sale of 50 percent of Citgo Petroleum to a state-owned Venezuelan oil company was imperiled for weeks after comments by Southland’s John P. Thompson were misinterpreted by the press. The trouble began when Thompson was quoted in a March 16, 1986, New York Times article saying, ’”we stole it, absolutely.” Although Thompson was referring to Southland’s purchase of a Lake Charles refinery in 1983, the Times article used the quote in reference to the Southland-Venezuelan deal. The Venezuelan press further interpreted the quote as “we robbed the Venezuelans.”

Worst News for Local Exporters-The Metroplex can’t seem to make ’em as fast as it buys ’em. Foreign exports of locally produced goods are increasing, but not as fast as imports. The foreign trade deficit is growing at such a rapid rate that the trade performance of the Metroplex is worse than the nation’s.

MEN OF THE YEAR

Bad Guy Who’s Good For Business-The Dallas Communications Council honored Larry Hagman this year for making a “significant contribution to the film industry in general and to the Texas film industry in particular.”



More Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Boys-This was the year when the sins of the sons were visited upon the fathers. .. maybe Ed Cox and Starke Taylor could start an encounter group for other well-known dads with infamous namesakes in the news.



SERVE YOU?

Best New Service-Have ledger, will travel. Financial Express is an accountant on wheels that brings financial services to your office or home. The company, started by Tim Terry, has four CPAs who operate from ’custom vans and specialize in monthly financial reports for small and mid-sized businesses and individual tax preparation.

Sure to be a Winner-Thompson Realty Corp., owned by 7-Eleven brothers John, Jere, and Jodie Thompson, plans to put six auto repair centers near shopping malls in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The idea is to drop off your car, then go shopping.

Another Bright Idea-Wai- Mart Stores Inc. and Dallas-based Cullum Companies Inc., operator of Tom Thumb-Page, formed a joint venture to develop Wal-Mart Super Centers that will sell both food and general mer-chandise in giant. 150,000-square-foot stores. How big is that? Well, it’s more than enough floorspace for 250 sperm whales or fifty Mount Rushmore-sized faces or three football fields.

Worst New Service-South-western Bell’s new 976 service, in which a business pays for a local number with a 976 prefix and callers are then charged for a service, has been a pain in the phone bill for some parents and municipalities. Among the 976 toll numbers are services for sex-ually explicit messages and soap opera updates. With calls starting at S2 for two minutes it doesn’t take long to rack up a good-sized bill. In December and January, someone at the Tarrant County Courthouse placed $45.90 worth of calls to sex services.



DIVIDE AND SURVIVE THEORY

Pick a Unit, Any Unit-Lear Petroleum Corp., under pressure to pay off debt, sold all of the oil and gas properties of its Lear Petroleum Partners unit to a French concern for $115 million; MCorp sold its retail banking operations for $300 million in (badly needed) cash, notes, and stock to Lomas & Nettleton Fi-nancial Corp.

SCREEN DOOR AWARDS



Shortest Rejection-Paul R. Ray & Company Inc. must think brief means painless. The company’s ding to Clare F. Ellinger of Arlington was a mere two lines, a piddly fourteen words, only fifty-seven typed characters-and three of those were punctuation marks.

Longest-E-Systems needed 145 convoluted words to let Kay Holland of Carrollton down very, very, very, very easily. Here’s a small sampling: “This letter.. . is intended to express : our appreciation while, at the same time, assure you that, in our best professional manner, we will process and review in-depth your indicated qualifications against our current personnel openings.”

Funniest-William R. All-bright of Dallas submitted this I entry: “I am sitting in the smallest room in my house

with your resume in front of me. In a moment it’ll be behind me.” Most Like an Advertisement-After Frito-Lay Inc. let Ira S. Matsil know he didn’t fit their bill, they added this postscript: “Although we will not be inviting you to further inter-views, I hope you will remain a Frito-Lay consumer and will watch for our new product introductions.”

Gives the Poorest Impression of the Company-Community Hospital Inc. of Falls City, Nehraska, sent James R. Queen Jr. of McCamey a crooked, barely legible copy of a form rejection letter on company letterhead with a smeared logo on a thin piece of paper.

You’re Only One in a Million-That most revolting habit of rejection letter writers-letting applicants know how many other hopefuls were panting for a position-peeved several of our contestants, but the University of Texas at Arlington’s letter to Karen S. Clayton of Dallas went one step further. Not only did the university let Clayton know that 130 other resumes were received for the position, but further informed her that the candidates had been narrowed to five (of which Clayton wasn’t one), and that the position was offered to one of them.

Can’t Say It Simply-Wrote Hogan Systems Inc. to Terry D. Tankersley of Dallas: “Decisions as to whom we have a match are dictated by our needs to fit the identified opening and required skills, thus it has been determined that we do not have a mutual compatibility and are unable to extend an offer.” Huh?

You Oughta Be Me-A GTE Directories Corporation management development director referred to himself nine times in three paragraphs while letting Karen S. Clayton of Dallas (yes, her again) know she didn’t get the job for which she had applied.