Behind Closed Doors

The growing debate over executive pay at public companies may not be as public as some would like it.

Shareholder activist Nell Minow, who complains that executive salaries “look like phone numbers,” invited the media to hear her take her case to a forum of chief executives in New York sponsored by Institutional Investor magazine. Among those listed as participating in the event last week were PacificCorp’s A. M. Gleason, Smith Corona’s G. Lee Thompson and Crane Co.’s Robert S. Evans (no sign of Time Warner’s Steven J. Ross).

But Institutional Investor President Peter A. Derow nixed Minow’s plan to welcome reporters. “We’ve got 30 CEOs who don’t want to be quoted,” he said.

Prime-Time Property for Sale

Further evidence that prime-time soaps have lost their suds comes from the real estate market.

In Napa Valley, the former 263-acre vineyard and 12,000-square-foot mansion used as the setting for the defunct “Falcon Crest” series remains unsold after nearly five months. Spring Mountain Vineyards has been listed at $18.2 million.

Likewise, the 41-acre Southfork Ranch, made famous as the Ewing family home in the canceled series “Dallas,” has been on the market since the first of the year.

The Parker, Tex., ranch is being sold by a unit of GlenFed Inc., parent of Glendale Federal Bank. The ranch’s owner defaulted in 1990 on an $8.2-million loan from GlenFed, which bought the uninhabited property for $3.15 million at a foreclosure sale in January.

Comeback of the Year?

A familiar name that has been out of the news for some time popped up last week as a winner in the Greater Los Angeles Area Entrepreneur of the Year awards.

Winning the “Entrepreneur Over Five Years in Business” category was Henry Y. Hwang, president of Far East National Bank in Los Angeles. The award, sponsored by Ernst & Young, Inc. Magazine, Merrill Lynch and the Los Angeles Business Journal, cited Hwang for such accomplishments as running a top-performing bank.

Not all of Hwang’s publicity over the years has been so favorable. He still is probably best known around town for being a central figure in the city’s 1989 ethics scandal.

It was Hwang’s hiring of Mayor Tom Bradley to open doors for the bank--and the subsequent disclosure that city funds were deposited there--that touched off widespread criticism of Bradley’s personal financial dealings.

In true entrepreneurial style, Hwang later contended that the publicity had been good for the small bank’s business.

Briefly. . .

America West Airlines, in the wake of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last week, says it is re-evaluating its controversial “air superiority” ad campaign in which comedian Jonathan Winters parodies Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf . . . Johnson Wax is using a “family fun consultant” as part of a promotional campaign for a new “Off!” insect repellent . . . Joe knows torts: Texas trial lawyer Joseph D. Jamail, who won Pennzoil’s multibillion-dollar verdict against Texaco, has been hired by L.A. Gear in its battle with Nike over a bouncy shoe technology.