Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: PRICE INCREASES (90%); SMALL BUSINESS (90%); OIL & GAS PRICES (89%); PRICE CHANGES (89%); FERTILIZERS (88%); FOOD & BEVERAGE (84%); WHOLESALERS (78%); ANIMAL FOODS (78%); FOOD PRICES (77%); WHOLESALE PRICES (77%); CONSUMER PRICES (77%); ECONOMIC INDICATORS (77%); LIVESTOCK FEED (73%); GASOLINE PRICES (72%); DIESEL FUEL PRICES (72%); DIESEL FUEL (71%); COMPANY PROFITS (68%); GASOLINE MARKETS (64%)
LOAD-DATE: May 22, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: In one year, the price of a 50-pound bag of horse feed rose to $10.49, from $6.99, at Copley Feed and Supply in Ohio.

Nancy Roesner, left, is an owner of Copley Feed and Supply. Brenda Sturn, right, preparing shelled corn for use in horse feed. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY MADALYN RUGGIERO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) (pg.C4)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

751 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 21, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Treats for the Treasure Hunters
BYLINE: By PETER MEEHAN
SECTION: Section F; Column 0; Dining In, Dining Out / Style Desk; $25 AND UNDER; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 711 words
THE rumors of huaraches were greatly exaggerated (or at least premature), but they lured me to Brownstoner's Brooklyn Flea as if I were a cartoon hobo drawn to a pie on the windowsill.

The Flea is a new outdoor market that takes place Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on the 40,000-square-foot playground of Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School on Lafayette Avenue between Clermont and Vanderbilt Avenues in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. (The full name refers to brownstoner.com, a blog by Jonathan Butler, who founded the market with Eric Demby, who oversees day-to-day operations.)

Most of the 100-plus vendors I saw were craftspeople, young designers and folks selling costly vintage items, rather than peddlers of bric-a-brac who would make the appellation ''flea'' a more fitting one. But while the vendors are the raison d'etre of the weekly gathering, I was there to eat.

A few food vendors from the Red Hook ball fields were supposedly taking their places among the other food stands at the Flea and would be offering their well-regarded street fare.

But the Vaquero family were the only Red Hook vendors on hand, serving up elotes, the Mexican grilled ears of corn impaled on sticks and slathered with the unlikely trifecta of mayo, cheese and chili powder ($3). Their presence and the utter scarfability of their elotes give me faith in Mr. Demby's assurances that that both pupusas and huaraches will be present and accounted for starting Sunday. There were plenty of other comestibles worth seeking out.

Salvatore Bklyn Ricotta, a Brooklyn-based two-woman cheesemaking operation, has a stand where they sell their airy ricotta and $3 palm-size cannoli. Each crisp cannoli shell is filled to order, piped full of lightly sweetened ricotta spiked with lemon zest, Marsala, chopped chocolate and salt. The one cannolo I ate was the best I've had outside of Sicily.

The market's layout depends on the number of vendors; updated information is at brooklynflea.com. When I was there, around the corner were the Lilliputian cupcakes at Keavy Landreth's stand, Kumquat Cupcakery. Each is moist and dense, so much so that they might be overkill at three times their size. But they're perfect as they are. Kumquat's selection changes regularly (updates are posted at kumquatcupcakery.blogspot.com), which means, sadly, that the apricot and poppy seed cupcakes will someday be gone. A box of six cupcakes is $5.

When the day comes that I am crying into my pillow over cupcakes of the past, I hope to be doing so with a box of bonbons ($15 for a dozen) from Nunu Chocolates, another vendor. These chocolates, by Justine Pringle, are thicker-skinned than the most in-vogue truffles, but the chocolate is bitter, dark and mouth-filling. A butterfly-shape chocolate was filled with a gooey dark caramel; a little square dotted with salt turned out to be a thicker, saltier caramel enrobed in chocolate. Biting into a teacup revealed a florid jasmine ganache; inside a flower was an essence of Earl Grey tea as enveloping as plunging your nose into a batch of fresh, aromatic tea leaves and dried flowers.

There are plenty more vendors, including Choice Cafe, a stand that doles out coffee, cookies, pastries, pies and creative sandwiches (all $7.50) that were the most filling savory option at the Flea when I was there. A grilled marinated hoisin salmon sandwich came with a banh mi-worthy slaw of pickled carrots, radishes, cucumber and more. I preferred the grilled marinated skirt steak, stuffed into a hearty ciabatta-like roll with avocado, cilantro, onions and chimichurri.

Starting June 1, Hot Bread Kitchen, which ''honors the culinary experience of immigrant women and provides entrepreneurial and job skills,'' according to its site, hotbreadkitchen.org, will do so at the Flea by selling some of the best tortillas ($5 for eight) and crisp lavash chips ($4 for a 4-ounce bag) in the city.

Vendors expected in the coming weeks include McClure's Pickles and a stand that will be selling the new packaged food line from the Korean restaurant Do Hwa.

And if the huaraches materialize, the only things left to look for will be space to eat on the school steps and a vendor selling hammocks for afterward.

Frank Bruni's review will return next week.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: RETAILERS (88%); BLOGS & MESSAGE BOARDS (70%); CHEESE MFG (65%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (94%) NEW YORK, USA (94%) UNITED STATES (94%)
LOAD-DATE: May 22, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: IS SHOPPING JUST...The Brooklyn Flea is held on Sundays in a lot at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School.

...AN EXCUSE TO EAT? Mexican grilled corn, waffles, cupcakes, cannoli and more keep bargain hunters well fueled. (PHOTOGRAPHS BY HIROKO MASUIKE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

752 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 21, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Bertelsmann Picks a Publishing Industry Outsider to Head Random House
BYLINE: By MOTOKO RICH and MARK LANDLER
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 1077 words
On the day that Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate, quelled weeks of speculation by announcing that Markus Dohle, head of the company's printing unit, would take over as chief executive of Random House, industry executives were largely reserving judgment on what it would mean to have a relative outsider in charge of the world's largest publisher of consumer books.

Mr. Dohle, 39, will succeed Peter W. Olson, Random House's current chief executive, on June 1. Mr. Olson, 58, who led the publishing division for the last decade, is in negotiations for a senior faculty position at Harvard Business School, according to a person knowledgeable about his plans. Mr. Olson declined to comment.

The appointment of Mr. Dohle, one of the youngest people to lead Random House, is the first significant executive shake-up since Hartmut Ostrowski took over as chief executive of Bertelsmann in January. Mr. Ostrowski previously was chief of Arvato, the company's printing and services division. In Mr. Dohle, head of Arvato's print unit since 2006, Mr. Ostrowski clearly picked his own man.

Mr. Dohle, who is described as charming by those who know him, speaks fluent English and will move to New York this summer. He takes over a division with an author stable that includes Toni Morrison, Dan Brown, John Grisham and Salman Rushdie. Along with other important players in the industry, Random House has recently suffered a slowdown, despite best sellers like Mr. Grisham's ''Playing for Pizza'' and ''Women and Money'' by Suze Orman.

Mr. Ostrowski acknowledged that Mr. Dohle, who has been with Bertelsmann since he graduated with a degree in economics and industrial engineering in 1994, did not have direct experience running a book publisher, although Arvato Print has many publishing clients.

Mr. Ostrowski said in an interview Tuesday that he could have appointed a traditional publisher to succeed Mr. Olson, but he said he wanted someone to bring a fresh perspective to the book division, which is steeped in tradition. ''Markus is a proven entrepreneur within the organization,'' Mr. Ostrowski said. He ''has shown he has been able to turn a mature business into a growing business.''

Separately, Bertelsmann announced that Richard Sarnoff, the president of the company's digital media investments group, had been appointed co-chairman of Bertelsmann Inc., where he would play a critical role in directing strategy in the United States.

In a memo to staff Tuesday, Mr. Ostrowski said that Mr. Olson was leaving ''of his own initiative.''

Last fall, Mr. Olson was out of the office for two months with double pneumonia, contracted on a business trip to China. Mr. Ostrowski said that Mr. Olson had approached him about leaving in January. ''From our perspective, it was not the right time to replace him,'' Mr. Ostrowski said. ''But we could accept that he wants to pursue other life plans.''

A senior Bertelsmann executive, however, said the factors behind Mr. Olson's departure were more complex. This executive, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was an internal personnel issue, said that Mr. Olson's split with the German management began last September, when he proposed dismissing Gail Rebuck, the chief executive of the Random House Group in Britain. This was vetoed by Mr. Ostrowski and Thomas Rabe, Bertelsmann's chief financial officer.

Ms. Rebuck did not return a call seeking comment. Stuart Applebaum, a Random House spokesman, said: ''I wouldn't dignify it with a comment. I would just label it as gossip.''

With pressure mounting, the Bertelsmann executive said, Mr. Olson began to look for an exit strategy. He hired a lawyer to negotiate a severance package. The company agreed to a deal, but it left some hard feelings, according to this person.

Mr. Olson, a former banker and lawyer and a voracious reader, also had no direct experience in the publishing industry prior to 1992, when he took over as chief financial officer of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Group, a book division owned by Bertelsmann that was merged with Random House in 1998. Mr. Olson took over as chief executive and became the first American to join Bertelsmann's executive board in 2001.

Although Random House produced more than 4,000 best sellers in 19 countries during Mr. Olson's tenure, he had a mixed reputation because he often showed a zealous focus on the bottom line. Yet last year, sales at Random House fell by 5.6 percent, and operating profits declined 4.9 percent.

Mr. Ostrowski said that one year's results did not affect his thinking. ''If someone has a proven record and he only misses his numbers once, you don't get fired for that,'' he said.

In a letter to employees, Mr. Ostrowski wrote, ''Let me state very clearly: we want to see Random House grow.'' He said in the interview that he wanted the entire company to achieve 4 percent organic growth in revenue each year.

According to a senior executive at Bertelsmann, the decision to change the leadership of Random House reached the uppermost levels of the company, which is controlled by the family of Reinhard Mohn. Liz Mohn, Mr. Mohn's wife and a powerful influence, was consulted, according to the executive. She had sometimes tense relations with Mr. Olson, this executive said, and was a champion of Mr. Dohle. Gunter Thielen, chairman of Bertelsmann's supervisory board, was also involved, the executive said.

The publishers and editors of Random House's imprints, rarely shy about expressing their opinions, were uncharacteristically reserved about the appointment of Mr. Dohle. Several said they would take Mr. Ostrowski at face value when he said that Mr. Dohle would continue to give publishers independence. ''There's every indication that Markus Dohle is looking forward to doing that with a lot of energy and business experience,'' said Irwyn Applebaum, president and publisher of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, whose authors include Danielle Steel and Dean Koontz.

Some publishers and agents outside Random House said it was not a good sign that someone without intimate knowledge of the book industry was taking over the venerable house.

But others said they were open-minded about Mr. Dohle, especially as he was young and might bring new ideas about digital initiatives and other matters. ''I hope that this man will be a very strong competitor,'' said Jane Friedman, chairman and chief executive of HarperCollins. ''Time will tell.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: PUBLISHING (92%); BOOK PUBLISHING (89%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (78%); APPOINTMENTS (78%); INTERVIEWS (77%); PNEUMONIA (50%); BUSINESS EDUCATION (89%)
COMPANY: BERTELSMANN AG (96%); ARVATO AG (85%); BERTELSMANN INC (62%); CNINSURE INC (60%)
TICKER: CISG (NASDAQ) (60%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS515120 TELEVISION BROADCASTING (96%); SIC4833 TELEVISION BROADCASTING STATIONS (96%); NAICS334612 PRERECORDED COMPACT DISC (EXCEPT SOFTWARE), TAPE & RECORD REPRODUCING (85%); NAICS334611 SOFTWARE REPRODUCING (85%); NAICS323119 OTHER COMMERCIAL PRINTING (85%); NAICS323117 BOOKS PRINTING (85%)
PERSON: JOHN GRISHAM (67%); DAN BROWN (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: GERMANY (92%); UNITED STATES (79%); CHINA (78%)
LOAD-DATE: May 29, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Markus Dohle, the new chief executive of Random House, was chosen amid a slowdown in the book publishing industry. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RANDOM HOUSE)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

753 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 21, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Bertelsmann Picks a Publishing Industry Outsider to Head Random House
BYLINE: By MOTOKO RICH and MARK LANDLER
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 8
LENGTH: 1077 words
On the day that Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate, quelled weeks of speculation by announcing that Markus Dohle, head of the company's printing unit, would take over as chief executive of Random House, industry executives were largely reserving judgment on what it would mean to have a relative outsider in charge of the world's largest publisher of consumer books.

Mr. Dohle, 39, will succeed Peter W. Olson, Random House's current chief executive, on June 1. Mr. Olson, 58, who led the publishing division for the last decade, is in negotiations for a senior faculty position at Harvard Business School, according to a person knowledgeable about his plans. Mr. Olson declined to comment.

The appointment of Mr. Dohle, one of the youngest people to lead Random House, is the first significant executive shake-up since Hartmut Ostrowski took over as chief executive of Bertelsmann in January. Mr. Ostrowski previously was chief of Arvato, the company's printing and services division. In Mr. Dohle, head of Arvato's print unit since 2006, Mr. Ostrowski clearly picked his own man.

Mr. Dohle, who is described as charming by those who know him, speaks fluent English and will move to New York this summer. He takes over a division with an author stable that includes Toni Morrison, Dan Brown, John Grisham and Salman Rushdie. Along with other important players in the industry, Random House has recently suffered a slowdown, despite best sellers like Mr. Grisham's ''Playing for Pizza'' and ''Women and Money'' by Suze Orman.

Mr. Ostrowski acknowledged that Mr. Dohle, who has been with Bertelsmann since he graduated with a degree in economics and industrial engineering in 1994, did not have direct experience running a book publisher, although Arvato Print has many publishing clients.

Mr. Ostrowski said in an interview Tuesday that he could have appointed a traditional publisher to succeed Mr. Olson, but he said he wanted someone to bring a fresh perspective to the book division, which is steeped in tradition. ''Markus is a proven entrepreneur within the organization,'' Mr. Ostrowski said. He ''has shown he has been able to turn a mature business into a growing business.''

Separately, Bertelsmann announced that Richard Sarnoff, the president of the company's digital media investments group, had been appointed co-chairman of Bertelsmann Inc., where he would play a critical role in directing strategy in the United States.

In a memo to staff Tuesday, Mr. Ostrowski said that Mr. Olson was leaving ''of his own initiative.''

Last fall, Mr. Olson was out of the office for two months with double pneumonia, contracted on a business trip to China. Mr. Ostrowski said that Mr. Olson had approached him about leaving in January. ''From our perspective, it was not the right time to replace him,'' Mr. Ostrowski said. ''But we could accept that he wants to pursue other life plans.''

A senior Bertelsmann executive, however, said the factors behind Mr. Olson's departure were more complex. This executive, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was an internal personnel issue, said that Mr. Olson's split with the German management began last September, when he proposed dismissing Gail Rebuck, the chief executive of the Random House Group in Britain. This was vetoed by Mr. Ostrowski and Thomas Rabe, Bertelsmann's chief financial officer.

Ms. Rebuck did not return a call seeking comment. Stuart Applebaum, a Random House spokesman, said: ''I wouldn't dignify it with a comment. I would just label it as gossip.''

With pressure mounting, the Bertelsmann executive said, Mr. Olson began to look for an exit strategy. He hired a lawyer to negotiate a severance package. The company agreed to a deal, but it left some hard feelings, according to this person.

Mr. Olson, a former banker and lawyer and a voracious reader, also had no direct experience in the publishing industry prior to 1992, when he took over as chief financial officer of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Group, a book division owned by Bertelsmann that was merged with Random House in 1998. Mr. Olson took over as chief executive and became the first American to join Bertelsmann's executive board in 2001.

Although Random House produced more than 4,000 best sellers in 19 countries during Mr. Olson's tenure, he had a mixed reputation because he often showed a zealous focus on the bottom line. Yet last year, sales at Random House fell by 5.6 percent, and operating profits declined 4.9 percent.

Mr. Ostrowski said that one year's results did not affect his thinking. ''If someone has a proven record and he only misses his numbers once, you don't get fired for that,'' he said.

In a letter to employees, Mr. Ostrowski wrote, ''Let me state very clearly: we want to see Random House grow.'' He said in the interview that he wanted the entire company to achieve 4 percent organic growth in revenue each year.

According to a senior executive at Bertelsmann, the decision to change the leadership of Random House reached the uppermost levels of the company, which is controlled by the family of Reinhard Mohn. Liz Mohn, Mr. Mohn's wife and a powerful influence, was consulted, according to the executive. She had sometimes tense relations with Mr. Olson, this executive said, and was a champion of Mr. Dohle. Gunter Thielen, chairman of Bertelsmann's supervisory board, was also involved, the executive said.

The publishers and editors of Random House's imprints, rarely shy about expressing their opinions, were uncharacteristically reserved about the appointment of Mr. Dohle. Several said they would take Mr. Ostrowski at face value when he said that Mr. Dohle would continue to give publishers independence. ''There's every indication that Markus Dohle is looking forward to doing that with a lot of energy and business experience,'' said Irwyn Applebaum, president and publisher of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, whose authors include Danielle Steel and Dean Koontz.

Some publishers and agents outside Random House said it was not a good sign that someone without intimate knowledge of the book industry was taking over the venerable house.

But others said they were open-minded about Mr. Dohle, especially as he was young and might bring new ideas about digital initiatives and other matters. ''I hope that this man will be a very strong competitor,'' said Jane Friedman, chairman and chief executive of HarperCollins. ''Time will tell.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: PUBLISHING (92%); BOOK PUBLISHING (89%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (78%); APPOINTMENTS (78%); INTERVIEWS (77%); PNEUMONIA (50%); BUSINESS EDUCATION (89%)
COMPANY: BERTELSMANN AG (96%); ARVATO AG (85%); BERTELSMANN INC (62%); CNINSURE INC (60%)
TICKER: CISG (NASDAQ) (60%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS515120 TELEVISION BROADCASTING (96%); SIC4833 TELEVISION BROADCASTING STATIONS (96%); NAICS334612 PRERECORDED COMPACT DISC (EXCEPT SOFTWARE), TAPE & RECORD REPRODUCING (85%); NAICS334611 SOFTWARE REPRODUCING (85%); NAICS323119 OTHER COMMERCIAL PRINTING (85%); NAICS323117 BOOKS PRINTING (85%)
PERSON: JOHN GRISHAM (67%); DAN BROWN (55%)
GEOGRAPHIC: GERMANY (92%); UNITED STATES (79%); CHINA (78%)
LOAD-DATE: May 28, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Markus Dohle, the new chief executive of Random House, was chosen amid a slowdown in the book publishing industry. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RANDOM HOUSE)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

754 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
May 21, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

A Movement And a Market Converge at a Bank
BYLINE: By DAN FOST
SECTION: Section SPG; Column 0; Small Business; Pg. 6
LENGTH: 745 words
FOR 14 years, Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco has been making award-winning organic cheeses and growing -- to more than $8 million in sales last year. Yet no bank had ever actively sought its business until New Resource Bank came calling.

''A bank has never been excited about us,'' said Sue Conley, a co-founder of the creamery, which is based in Petaluma, Calif. ''Banks just haven't understood what we're doing or how it might be successful. We were really taken aback when New Resource said they'd like to work with us.''

New Resource opened in San Francisco in 2006 with the theory that helping green businesses like Cowgirl Creamery would be good for its own bottom line. Peter Liu, the founder of New Resource, had worked as a vice president at Credit Suisse First Boston and at Chase Manhattan Bank, but he was also an environmentalist who saw sustainability as a long-term trend.

''Green is going to evolve from a social movement to a market opportunity,'' Mr. Liu said. ''There will be real opportunities for new businesses, new technologies, new products and new services that are demanded by consumers.''

Mr. Liu also wanted to hark back to the days of community banking, when a small-town banker could offer high-touch service. With New Resource, that community is the world of solar entrepreneurs, organic farmers and green technology start-ups in Silicon Valley.

New Resource, which operates like other federally insured banks, offers customers financial incentives for green building projects. It has also created loans for homeowners that enable them to install solar systems with no money down.

New Resource is not only financing a $1.2 million solar project for Veritable Vegetable, a mostly organic produce distributor in San Francisco, but also connected the company with another client, Borrego Solar Systems, which will install the panels on its facility.

''We're a customer of New Resource because we know New Resource is specializing in companies that are environmentally committed,'' said Bu Nygrens, an owner of Veritable Vegetable. ''We feel like for the first time in our 34-year history, we actually have a personal relationship with the people we're banking with.''

Veritable Vegetable not only abandoned Bank of America after 32 years to put its money in New Resource, but it also became an investor in the bank. So many people wanted to invest in it that the bank gave some money back to investors.

''We just wanted to be disciplined in our growth and not overdilute our valuation,'' Mr. Liu said. In its first 17 months in business, New Resource has amassed more than $180 million in assets.

New Resource has its own green credentials: its offices in San Francisco have a ''gold'' rating in the Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system.

Born in Taiwan, Mr. Liu immigrated to Los Angeles with his family when he was 12 and eventually earned a degree in chemical engineering and material science from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked at the Chevron Corporation, designing production units for refineries. At Chevron, he had his environmental awakening.

He wound up at the California Air Resources Board, helping establish rules and watching his former industrial colleagues squawk. ''Having been on both sides, I learned that when you set a standard, companies figure out how to reach it,'' he said.

He decided to re-enter the business world and enrolled in the public policy program at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. He then went into international banking during his stints at Chase and Credit Suisse.

He moved back to California and wound up at Environmental Entrepreneurs, a business network. He worked with Bob Epstein, a co-founder of that group who had also started the database company Sybase and other technology businesses, and the two hatched the idea for a green bank.

''What's the banking relationship that green businesses are looking for?'' Mr. Epstein asked. ''We did a lot of research and found that that was an unmet demand.''

So when Cowgirl Creamery was ready to borrow money from Bank of America to build a cheese-making operation to increase production and improve quality, New Resource matched the offer with an 8 percent loan for $1.3 million.

''We're not here just to fulfill a social mission,'' Mr. Liu said. ''We're here to build a great business.''