Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 21

Tuesday, August 18, 1998 Tallahassee Democrat Thursday. Labor Department releases weekly jobless Mutuals, 2 Markets, 2 Stocks, 3 i nw.tallahassee.com checkout time for Tallahassee's Brairio's f'' If Winn-Dixie acquired two of the Bruno's stores, it would have 10 current or pending locations in Tallahassee. heard there are negotiations be-" tween Bruno's and Winn-Dixie. He declined to comment further. Bruno's store managers in Tallahassee referred questions to corporate headquarters in Birmingham, Ala.

A company spokeswoman there said Bruno's, "prefers not to make any comment on the question concerning a purchase," said Lynn Sampson. "Employees can be wrong." The signs of imminent closings were clear Monday morning, from the hand-lettered placards announcing store-brand goods are 25 percent off, to the bare expanses of empty shelves. Shopping carts parked near the front door of the Apalachee Parkway store were heaped with steep The Apalachee Parkway and Capital Circle Northeast stores will close Saturday, while the I Kerry Forest store will remain open until Aug. 29. i By Paige St.

John DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER Bruno's is packing up and ready to leave Tallahassee, shutting down one store and possibly I selling two others to Winn-Dixie, employees say, 1 The first closings will be this weekend, Bruno's officials said 'Monday. i Winn-Dixie officials would not confirm that it was buying any of Bruno's stores. "We have nothing in writing on that at this point," said Regional Marketing Director Bill Tyjewski. i However, Tyjewski said, it is likely that store employees have the Bruno's stores, it would have 10 current or pending locations in Tallahassee. That growth would bring Winn-Dixie head-to-head against Publix Super Markets, which dominates the Tallahassee market with 11 locations.

Albertson's, by comparison, has three stores. Winn-Dixie has six stores in Tallahassee, and is opening a seventh Thursday on Paul Russell Road near the North Florida Fairgrounds. An eighth store is under construction on Mahan Drive, just east of Capital Circle Northeast and the Publix shopping center. Winn-Dixie operates 1,200 stores in 14 states, mostly in the South. The Jacksonville-based grocery chain also has 22 food processing facilities that make store-brand products.

It's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Winn-Dixie reported 1997 sales of more than $13 billion. Paige St John covers business and health and can be reached at 599-2305. i Li I -if lulii-fe Winn-Dixie is rumored to be negotiating to buy the Capital Circle Northeast and Kerry Forest Bruno's stores. 1 BRUCE MELLINGERDemocrat files Albertson's and the pending saie or closure of another 20 stores.

The three Tallahassee stores were on the "sell-or-be-closed" list. They had been open until midnight until recently. There are now handwritten signs on the entrance doors that announce they are closing ear- ly discounted baking supplies the kind used to decorate personalized cakes in the store bakery. A deli clerk said there would be no more deliveries of boar's head braunschweiger. She leaned over the counter and whispered, "Winn-Dixie is buying us." A bagger at the checkout aisle Russia lets ruble drop up to 34 i "4 said he soon would be out of a job.

"We're closing Saturday," he said. "Winn-Dixie is buying two stores." Bruno's has been selling assets since it sought federal bankruptcy protection in January. Last month, it announced the sale of 15 stores to ready were expected to go belly-up in the next few weeks. The government also said it would halt payment on government treasury bills and impose a 90-day moratorium on payments of foreign debt. A ruble devaluation had been widely rumored, in part because the government faces heavy payments on ruble-denominated debt in coming days and weeks.

Anatoly Chubais, Russia's envoy to international lending organizations, insisted that the government was not defaulting. "We are not reneging on our debts," he said. "We realize that many of our partners will feel uncomfortable, but any hesitation on our part would cost them far more." The moves are expected to shake foreign investors, whose confidence in the government's ability to overcome the economic crisis already had been shrinking. Prices on European markets were mixed after the Russian government said it would let the ruble sink from 6.3 to 9.5 to the dollar. The price for dollars on the street immediately rose to as high as 9.5 rubles.

In Washington, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin called on the Russian government to "move quickly to take actions to restore confidence." Although instability in any world power is a concern, the impact of the devaluation on the United States economy will be negligible. The United States and Russia are not big trading partners. American businesses don't buy a lot of goods from Russia and don't sell a lot to them either. Prime Minister Sergei Kir-iyenko insisted that the ruble's new lower limit "does not mean a devaluation of the ruble" because technically the market sets the price. Officials have sworn repeatedly they lier each evening.

Sampson said the stores on Apalachee Parkway and Capital Circle Northeast will close Saturday, while the Kerry Forest store will remain open until Aug. 29. Bruno's employees, who would not give their names, said Winn-Dixie is buying the Kerry Forest and Capital Circle stores, but not the Apalachee Parkway store, which is a block from an existing Winn-Dixie on Magnolia Drive. Bruno's shares the plaza location on the parkway with an Office Depot and a Barnes Noble bookstore. If Winn-Dixie acquired two of reserves to keep the ruble within that corridor.

But the cost of propping up the ruble become too high, Kiriyenko and Central Bank President Sergei Dubinin said in a joint statement explaining the government's new exchange rate policy. The new rate will help combat "speculative attacks" on the ruble "that have led to unjustified spending of the currency reserves of the Bank of Russia," the statement said. The Russian government blamed the difficult economic situation on the Asian financial crisis and a recent drop in the world price of oil, Russia's biggest export answered at all. About 34,000 union employees went on strike at 12:01 am. Sunday after negotiators failed to agree on a new contract It was the first West strike since the company was created when broke up in 1984.

There were reports of a few employees who crossed picket lines. Company officials reported cases of vandalism to police in Colorado Springs and Albuquerque, N.M. Union leaders denied involvement Federal mediator Jim Mahon, who entered the bargaining sessions on Friday, asked both sides to reassess their positions before they restart negotiations. The company and the union said talks may resume today or Wednesday, but no date has been confirmed. The critical issues include man "a a i I MISHA JAPARIDZEThe Associated Press I People line up at an ATM at a supermarket in central Moscow on Monday.

Devaluing of the ruble is expected to cause hardships for Russian consumers. The government said it would halt payment on government treasury bills and impose a 90-day moratorium on payments of foreign debt. By Judith Ingram THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW After spending billions of dollars during the past three months to prop up Russia's weak currency, the government gave up on Monday and let the ruble's value drop by up to 34 percent The policy turnaround will hit long-suffering Russians hard, raising the price of imports that make, up a large percentage of consumer goods, including groceries. It also could provide more pain for Russia's 1,500 banks up to half al- Falling ruble Russian rubles to U.S. dollar 5.5, 6 6.5 7 7.5 8 8.5 9 9.5 ASONDJFMAMJJA 1997 1998 Source: AP research WM.J.

CASTEUOAP Scattered rCMi' I ill" l. I 'I BRIEFS RESTAURANTS Morrison swallowed by Piccadilly Louisiana-based Piccadilly Cafeterias Inc. purchased Morrison Restaurants Inc. for $46 million on July 31. Brian Von Gruben, executive vice president at Piccadilly, said it is converting the Morrison's cafeterias in phases.

There won't be any changes in Tallahassee until July 1999. Next summer, the Morrison's name will come down in Tallahassee and Piccadilly's will go up. The menu and prices may change slightly, Von Gruben said. RETAILERS Gayfers is gradually becoming a Dillard's The first change in the process that will make Gayfers a Dillard's will take place Sunday. Dillard's an Arkansas-based retailer, purchased Mercantile Stores Co.

which owns Gayfers department stores, for nearly $2.9 billion in May. Suzanne High tower, general manager of the Tallahassee Gayfers, said representatives from Dillard's began converting the Gayfers computers to the Dillard's system last weekend. Beginning Sunday, customers should receive receipts that say Dillard's instead of Gayfers. WORTH NOTIHG Caribbean Carnival Friday and Saturday Here's a schedule from the Tallahassee Area Convention and Visitors Bureau of the Caribbean Carnival. The Carnival Village is located downtown on Kle-man Plaza, behind City Hall at Duval and Pensacola streets.

The costume exhibition is Friday at the Lemoyne Art Gallery, 125 N. Gadsden St. The LeMoyne block party starts at 6 p.m. Friday at the gallery. J'ouvert is at 4 a.m.

Saturday, with the location to be announced. The Carnival parade is at 1 p.m. Saturday at Call and Monroe streets, heading toward Madison then Duval at Kleman Plaza. The Kids Carnival starts at 9 am Saturday at Carnival Village on Kleman Plaza. The Carnival Nite Dance starts at 9 p.m.

Saturday at the Civic Center. For more information on Caribbean Carnival events, call 878-5148, and read Friday's Limelight in the Democrat Democrat staff reports percent if-. i- ft earner. Already, the government has I introduced an austerity program to close the huge gap between gov- ernment revenues and spending. The plan was pushed for by the IMF in exchange for the loan.

But sagging investor confidence hasn't improved. In the streets of Moscow, some I worried about the effect devalua- tion would have on them. Many state workers already hadn't been paid for months. "It was hard to survive before on my pension," said Yelena Bo-chet, 68. "But now I simply don't know what to do." datory overtime, health-care benefits, scheduling flexibility and a company plan to base bonuses of up to 20 percent of salary on job performance for customer-sales representatives and repair technicians.

For the union, the key issue is reducing mandatory overtime. Sue Pisha, vice president of the union's District 7, said West employees worked 6.5 million hours of overtime in 1997, which is the equivalent of 3,200 jobs. West officials said they are addressing the concerns about overtime and have offered their own proposal. West has about 25 million customers in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. r' delays, chance of unwanted recordings would not allow a devaluation.

Nevertheless, the move was a concession of defeat in the one area where Russia's often painful economic reforms had yielded an achievement: keeping the ruble steady and inflation low. Russia had depleted its reserves to just $17 billion, in part by defending the currency. The drop came despite the infusion in July of a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, part of a $22.6 billion bailout by international lenders. In recent years, the government has set a band for daily fluctuations and buys and sells with its With US West workers on strike, customers are reporting occasional problems with directory assistance. By Sandy Shore The ASSOCIATED PRESS DENVER Scattered, occasional delays and recorded messages greeted callers seeking directory assistance Monday as a strike against US West Inc.

entered its second full day. Union employees picketed outside West buildings in 13 states while about 15,000 managers handled directory assistance, new installations and repairs. Some calls were answered immediately; others were answered by a recording asking the caller to try later and still others were not i en vr4TRfVi i i wrtr I AUGUST MILLERThe Associated Press West employees walk the picket line in front of a maintenance facility In Ogden, Utah, on Monday as part of the first West strike since the company was created in the 1984 breakup of.