MEMO

The Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce will hold its annual meeting, dinner and dance Jan. 27 at the Show Me Center.

Retiring chamber directors and chairmen will be recognized. Awards to be presented include the 1992 Go-Getter award, the Rush H. Limbaugh award and the Small Business of the Year award.

A social hour will be held from 6 to 7 p.m., with a buffet dinner at 7. Dancing will start at 9.

The cost is $20 a person. Additional information is available by calling Linda Minner at the chamber office, 335-3312.

Charles L. Hutson, president of Hutson Furniture Co. in Cape Girardeau, was the winner of the Limbaugh award in 1993. Alvin "Buddy" Bess, a co-owner of Bluff City Beer, received the chamber's second Small Business of the Year Award presented by the Chamber's Small Business-Business Research Committee. Neal Edwards received the 1993 Go-Getter Award, presented to a person on the Chamber's Membership Committee for efforts in obtaining new members.

The Professional Secretaries International (PSI) will meet Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. for its December meeting and Christmas party.

PSI meetings are open to the public. Additional information or dinner reservations are available by contacting Betty Sargent, 651-2541.

Construction is under way on three new Hampton Inns -- at Cape Girardeau, San Antonio and the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport area.

The inns will be operated by Drury Inns Inc.

The Cape Girardeau motel will be a three-story, 82-room hotel, a block south of the Drury Suites near the intersection of Interstate 55 and Route K.

The Hampton Inn here is expected to open in June.

The Hampton Inns in Texas will be four-story, 80-room units, featuring 29 suites with two rooms. Both are scheduled to open in April.

The Hampton chain, observing its 10th anniversary this year, has more than 400 hotels coast-to-coast.

Drury Inns Inc. owns and operates more than 60 Drury, Pear Tree, Thrifty and Hampton Inn hotels in 11 states.

A date has been established for the 1995 Business Conference in Cape Girardeau.

The annual conference, sponsored by Southeast Missouri State University's Donald L. Harrison College of Business and the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce University Relations Committee will be held at the Show Me Center April 12.

Additional information will be announced later.

Mercantile Bancorporation Inc. of St. Louis has announced a merger agreement with TCBankshares, Inc., the third-largest bank holding company in Arkansas.

TCBankshares, based in North Little Rock, had about $1.4 billion in assets as of Sept. 30, and owns six banks with 36 offices in central, northern and western Arkansas. The company's lead bank is Twin City Bank in Little Rock.

Mercantile has assets of $12.2 billion as of Sept. 30, and owns 42 Mercantile banks in Missouri, eastern Kansas, Southern Illinois, northern Iowa.

According to terms of the agreement, Mercantile will issue 4.76 million shares of its common stock in exchange for the common stock of TCBankshares. Mercantile will assume, through an exchange, outstanding, non-convertible preferred stock of TCBankshares with a value of $12.1 million.

The merger is subject to the approval of all appropriate regulatory authorities.

NEW YORK -- Kmart Corp. has become the first nationwide discount chain to plan a store for Manhattan, an area previously considered too expensive and too unproductive by many big national storeowners.

The nation's second-largest retailer on Wednesday signed a lease in an office building near the busy Herald Square shopping area that also includes Macy's, Abraham & Straus and hundreds of specialty stores.

"Business After Hours," designed to unite Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce members in a relaxed atmosphere, will be held Tuesday at the Cape Girardeau Country Club.

The Business After Hours session is held the third Tuesday of each month, from 5 to 6:30 p.m.

The University of Arkansas has received an $18 million gift from Saudi Arabia.

The Arkansas Business weekly said the funds, given by King Fahd, were received by the university in early 1993 after "power passed to the Bill Clinton administration."

Arkansas Business learned of the donation from an article appearing in the "The New Yorker," which portrayed a mutual back-scratching relationship between King Fahd and President Clinton.

Although Gov. Jim Guy Tucker did make an announcement of the gift, a university spokeswomen told Arkansas Business that Arkansas' most popular university doesn't make a practice of trumpeting large gifts.

But that statement, says Arkansas Business, appears at odds with the university's publicity blitz about the $15 million gift from Bud Walton, heralded as the largest ever received by the university.

"One would think that a gift that topped that would at least get a press release," said the business publication."

NEW YORK -- American manufacturing will grow at a slower pace in 1995 than it did this year, signalling that the overall economy is cooling off, according to a report by the National Association of Purchasing Management.

Most industrial companies will see improvements in their businesses, NAPM said recently in its 48th semiannual economic forecast.

But revenues will grow by less than half the rate they grew this year, indicating lower demand for products, the trade group said.

McDonald's Corp. has opened its second restaurant in Shanghai, its 27th in China.

The fast-food chain has proceeded with its expansion in China despite recent troubles with that nation's unpredictable business climate.

Two weeks ago, the Beijing city government reneged on a 20-year lease, telling McDonald's to give up a prime site in a major shopping district -- its biggest restaurant in the world -- to make way for a commercial complex. McDonald's has requested a meeting with Chinese authorities on the eviction order.

The new McDonald's restaurant that opened in Shanghai is in a bustling business district and can seat 220 people. McDonald's opened its first Shanghai restaurant earlier this year.