Business briefs for July 5, 2001

Thursday, July 5, 2001 | 11:08 a.m.

Vegas insurance company sold

Brown & Brown Inc. of Daytona Beach, Fla., said it acquired Las Vegas-based insurance agency Layne & Associates Ltd. for an undisclosed sum.

Layne, which has one office in Las Vegas providing property and liability insurance and workers compensation coverage for the gaming, hospitality and construction industries, will retain its name for at least 60-90 days after its merger with Brown & Brown's 40-worker office in Las Vegas.

Cory Walker, Brown & Brown's corporate chief financial officer, said it hasn't been determined if the combined company will be renamed. He said none of Layne's 50 Las Vegas employees will be laid off at this stage.

"Even if there are, the layoffs will not be significant because the insurance business is not like a manufacturing operation, which has duplicate facilities. Layne has about $6.4 million in revenues and it needs the same number of customer service representatives to handle their clients," Walker said.

Brown & Brown's Las Vegas office, which provides property, casualty and surety bonding insurance for the construction industry, reported revenues of about $4.5 million for 2000.

Feds investigate reports of transmission problem

WASHINGTON -- The Transportation Department has opened a preliminary investigation into complaints from owners of Jeep Grand Cherokees that the vehicles have shifted on their own from "park" into "reverse," while they are idling or even shut down. The vehicles under investigation were made by what is now the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler of Germany for the 1995 through 1999 model years.

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration has 48 reports of such incidents, causing 32 crashes and 14 injuries. The engine was running in 29 cases and shut off in 19.

The complaint is the same as one in another product built DaimlerChrysler, the Dodge Dakota pickup truck.

Last year DaimlerChrysler recalled about 130,000 of those trucks in the 1990 and 1991 model years and modified their transmissions. The company did not, however, acknowledge any problem with them -- it blamed the incidents on drivers who failed to shift into park as they intended.

Actors reach deal with TV, movie industries

LOS ANGELES -- Two things helped Hollywood actors avert a debilitating strike against the TV and movie industries: a painful rehearsal and being upstaged.

Last year's devastating commercial actors walkout and a deal struck a month ago by screenwriters motivated the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to forge a tentative contract Tuesday without a work stoppage.

"The commercial actors strike hurt, but I think it actually strengthened the unions because it showed that a strike was possible," said K Callan, an actress and former SAG board member who has written advice books for aspiring performers. "When the writers guild settled, it helped the actors by setting up guidelines."

Many of the gains made in the actors' settlement, which must be approved by a majority of the guilds' 135,000 members, mirror those in the contract for the Writers Guild of America, which was ratified June 4.

The writers secured a 3.5 percent raise in minimum pay for movies and TV shows, and SAG spokesman Greg Krizman said the actors' deal "was in that ballpark," although specifics were not released.

LV-area land sold to home builder

James Hardie Industries Ltd., an Australian company, said it agreed to sell the 2,200 acres on which its Southern Nevada gypsum mine sits for $50 million to WL Homes, a unit of London-based home builder John Laing PLC.

The gypsum and wallboard operation, which employs a staff of 135 in the Blue Diamond area in the southern part of the Las Vegas metro area, is not expected to close. Layoffs are also not expected, said Las Vegas plant manager Terry Sherman.

"James Hardie has yet to sell the (Las Vegas mining) operation, but it has made it clear that it plans to do so," he said. "It'll probably take a few weeks to determine the impact (on the mining operation) resulting from the sale of the land."

A James Hardie spokesman told Dow Jones News Service: "It has quite attractive potential for some other use than mining -- residential, hotel, golf course, that style of thing."