Gsi Commerce

When Nicole St. Julien-Thomas hears her alarm buzzing each morning, she doesn't have to worry about her work outfit, traffic jams or office politics. She just picks up the phone, logs on to her computer at home in Gloucester County, and starts fielding customer service calls. St. Julien-Thomas is homeshoring, a new and expanding practice that allows customer service agents to work from home instead of in centralized call centers. Some large American companies are even bringing some of their customer-service operations back from India, the Philippines, and other offshore locations to take advantage of homeshoring.

Who are these guys? The new 76ers owners, who purchased the team from Comcast-Spectacor , include overlapping circles of University of Pennsylvania grads, Philly natives, and Wall Street moguls who got rich during (and after) the long economic boom that crashed in 2008. Plus Hollywood people. A couple of veteran sports businessmen. And the Indonesians. As a group they are led by Wharton School grads Joshua Harris, a founder of Apollo Global Management L.L.C.

Securities trades recently reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission by officers, directors, and principal shareholders of corporations based or having sizable employment in the Philadelphia area. Titles are as reported to the SEC. A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts Inc. Joseph A. Jeffries , chief operating officer, bought 4,500 shares at $2.80 May 14 and now directly holds 153,542 shares. David Ross Stern , chief financial officer, bought 5,374 shares at $2.79 May 24 and now directly holds 109,220 shares.

What makes a company valuable? In the stock markets, where software writers, oil refiners, toy-makers and bomb builders compete for the same investor dollars, it doesn't matter what you make, or even how much you sell; it's how much profit investors expect you're going to keep that determines share prices. Thirteen Philadelphia-area companies rank on the Standard & Poor's list of 500 big publicly traded corporations. The most valuable is Comcast Corp., the Philadelphia-based cable TV, Internet and phone company, which earned $2.5 billion on gross sales of $25 billion last year, and was worth $64 billion - based on the price Wall Street assigns to its shares - on the Nasdaq Stock Market at the start of November.

Investors had more questions than answers after A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts Inc. cut its earnings outlook in October for the second time in 2005. Shares in the retailer based in Berlin, Camden County, fell 24 percent in the fourth quarter. Even A.C. Moore's executives can't explain a sales slowdown that also hit rivals Michaels Stores Inc. and Jo-Ann Stores Inc. "If I could answer that question, I would be a genius," said Leslie H. Gordon, chief financial officer of A.C. Moore, which operates 105 stores in the eastern United States.

A new federal rule has a Chester County aerospace company's stock flying high. Shares in Innovative Solutions & Support Inc., of Exton, soared 36 percent in the fourth quarter, making the company one of the biggest gainers of 158 area firms whose shares rose in the period. Only 50 area companies' share prices fell. Technology and telecommunications companies were among the big winners, while bio-pharmaceutical companies were among the losers. Genaera Corp., of Plymouth Meeting, and Adolor Corp.

Gary Bundy has been named director of graduate education at Cabrini College, Radnor. He had been assistant athletic director for student service at Temple University. Bilcare Inc., Phoenixville, has named Vincent Lagrotteria vice president of global sales and marketing. He had been vice president of global business development for Charles River Laboratories, Wilmington, Mass. Dorothy Haynes has been named director of Miles Marketing & Public Relations, a division of Miles Technologies, Moorestown.