Suits: A Motivated Seller In The Motor City

Since handing over day-to-day control of his familys auto company to a new chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, last fall, William Clay Ford Jr. has rarely been seen in public. But last week he joined the C.E.O.s of Detroits other automakers to support President Bushs new health care initiative at a luncheon with Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services.

Frederick W. Reid

Reporters and editors from The Timess Sunday Business section offer perspective on the week in business and beyond.

Lewis Lapham, left, the former Harper’s editor, and Thomas Ryder, the former Reader’s Digest chairman, each received a lifetime achievement award at a lunch in Gotham Hall in Manhattan.

Mr. Ford, now executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company, might have used the gathering of so many wealthy Michiganders to pass out some brochures on his former home in Ann Arbor, Mich., which is now listed for sale. The 6,500-square-foot, contemporary home on 17 acres along the Huron River is priced at $3.95 million.

Mr. Ford, who has moved up the river, is undoubtedly eager to sell the home before Pfizer closes its sprawling research campus nearby, causing property values to fall — at least more than they already have because of layoffs at Ford and General Motors. NICK BUNKLEY

SURE BET Getting a $500,000 raise every year apparently was a hard habit to kick for the casino impresario Stephen A. Wynn.

In 2002, Mr. Wynn, chief executive of Wynn Resorts, signed a 15-year employment contract that promised him a starting salary of $1.25 million and three annual raises that would take his salary to a maximum of $2.75 million, according to company filings. But as of Feb. 1, Wynns board raised the stakes again, increasing his salary to $3.25 million. PATRICK McGEEHAN

TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM In seeking to persuade federal regulators that it is not controlled by foreigners, Virgin America, a fledgling low-cost airline, has offered to remove its C.E.O., Frederick W. Reid, who happens to be an American.

Why? Federal regulators have singled out Mr. Reid — a former president of Delta Air Lines and chairman of its short-lived budget offshoot, Song — because he was hired by Virgins London-based parent and not by its American board, said a company spokesman, Gareth Edmondson-Jones. United States law forbids foreigners to control American carriers.

In addition, Virgin Americas investors in the United States, Cyrus Capital and Black Canyon, pledged to invest an additional $20 million, all from Americans.

On the other side of the pond, the Virgin Group, which is run by a Briton, Sir Richard Branson, offered to give up its veto over Virgin Americas operations and put its voting shares into a trust approved by the government. ELIZABETH OLSON

ACTIVE RETIREMENT Schlumberger Ltd., the giant oil services company, announced this month that its chief financial officer, Jean-Marc Perraud, would retire after 33 years with the company.

But that did not mean that Mr. Perraud, 59, would leave the payroll or stop accruing retirement pay right away — just some time before the end of the decade. For nearly four years after he steps down on March 1, he will advise Schlumbergers C.E.O., Andrew Gould, on financial issues, the company said.

Mr. Perraud will collect his current $600,000 salary as a full-time adviser for the first nine months, then take a 25 percent pay cut when he scales back to half-time for three years. All the while, his retirement payout will continue to grow as though he were still earning his full salary. PATRICK McGEEHAN

NEVER TOO SOON TO SWEAT William R. Inge, the British vicar known as the Gloomy Dean, once said that anxiety is interest paid on trouble before it is due. A half-century after his death, Britain still leads the way in anticipating bad news.

Or so it seems from the ETC Groups contest to come up with a hazard sign for nanotechnology, the science of making products on a molecular scale, even though it has not actually been demonstrated to cause any health or environmental hazards yet. The three finalists are British, too.

Dimitris Deligiannis, a graphic designer who teaches one day a week at the London College of Communication, said he was very honored that his skull inside a stylized atom had been the leading vote receiver among 16 finalists displayed at the World Social Forum in Nairobi. His design and more than 400 other entries are displayed at the groups Web site, www.etcgroup.org.

Mr. Deligiannis said he had never heard of nanotechnology before last October, when his graphic design instructor called attention to ETCs contest.

There may be danger, he said, but its kind of early to know. BARNABY J. FEDER

UNDETERRED The American Society of Magazine Editors gave a lifetime achievement award to Lewis H. Lapham, the former editor of Harpers, last week.

Its business-side analog, the Magazine Publishers of America, bestowed a similar honor on Thomas O. Ryder, former chairman and chief executive of the Readers Digest Association.

Mr. Ryder recalled that when he was 10, he wrote his first article for publication, and submitted it to Readers Digest.

My brother and I spent most of our summer waiting out on the road by the mailbox for the check that never came, he said. I think I made up for it, though. JANE L. LEVERE

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