The Musser Group, headed by octagenarian Warren "Pete" Musser, who ran Safeguard Scientifics for 48 years and through several investment cycles until he left amid the dot.com bust of 2000-01, has beefed up its staff, and publicist Alisa King says the Wayne-based firm is spreading cash -- it won't say how much -- to a string of Web and tech start-ups. Musser still holds breakfast meetings at the Radnor Hotel. It's almost like the 1990s never ended.
  New hires include Main Line physician Robert J. Kreb 3d, accountant Michael R. Holly, and attorney James L. Murray. Investment examples include CeeLite, developer of a low-power "lighting technique", run by old Safeguard hand Howard E. Goldberg (ex-ceo of InterDigital Communications Corp.) from an office in Blue Bell, with most operations in Taiwan; LotandHome.com, "a website of only new construction homes" that was "developed by Fred Catona who also was one of the founders of Priceline.com"; and College Fanz Sports Network, "a website for mostly college, but also professional, sporting information," chaired by ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen and run by University of Delaware baseball player-turned-real estate investor Darren Pulito from an office in Mt. Laurel.

  Developer Brian O'Neill says he paid $17.5 million for a 66-acre Limerick Township, Montgomery County property owned by heirs to the late trailer-park owner and real estate investor James Overstreet, which he plans to develop as "Sanatoga Springs".
  The ground, O'Neill says, surrounds Simon Property Group's half-million-square-foot Philadelphia Premium Outlets shopping center. "Simon Property Group put in roads, sewer and water. Now we own the doughnut around them, and our site is fully prepared to develop."
  How'd King of Prussia-based O'Neill Properties Group LP get around Simon? O'Neill says he goes way back with the owners' family:  Overstreet was an investor in National Penn Bank of Boyertown, one of O'Neill's early financiers. Simon, based in Indianapolis, is part-owner (and might soon be majority-owner) of the King of Prussia Mall. Simon officials didn't return calls.
  "We'll probably spend $150 million by the time we're finished," O'Neill said. His draft proposals call for a cinema, a hotel, stores. No apartments? "We are considering a residential component," O'Neill said. "Age-targeted, for young professionals, and over 55." That means one- or two-bedroom.
  Would these be five-story buildings, like the ones he built at the Lofts at Valley Forge, and the ones that burned at his RiverWalk in Conshohocken earlier this month? No, says O'Neill: "These would be three- and four-story buildings."  

    

  UPDATE: Making sense of the SEC's push for Euro accounting rules in the U.S.: Link to PhillyDeals column here.
  ORIGINAL: The Securities and Exchange Commission, under pressure to ease any rule that makes it tougher for financiers to do business in the U.S. vs. less-restrictive Europe and other countries, has proposed to phase out Made-in-USA Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) in favor of looser International Financial Reporting Standards. The switch would take place in stages, under the next President.
  Is this really better for investors, or is it SEC chairman Christopher Cox's economic development program to help Wall Street win back lost business from London and other, looser financial centers? SEC release here. 

  Boeing, which makes helicopters at its sprawling Ridley works, wins a $4 billion military helicopter contract. Inquirer story here. Steelmaker ArcelorMittal, which runs the former Lukens plate mill in Coatesville and the Alan Wood plant in Conshohocken, negotiates a new United Steelworkers contract in a rush to avoid a strike. Inquirer story here.

   Chrysler LLC, which is planning to close its 244-acre, 3 million-plus square foot assembly plant in Newark, Del., next year, idling more than 1,000 United Auto Workers and hundreds more parts-plants and service employees, has started building hybrid gasoline-electric Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen SUVs there in the plant's final year. Release here.
  That doesn't affect competition for the site by would-be redevelopers, who include the neighboring, expansion-minded University of Delaware, and local developer Verino Pettinaro, who's made a career of redeveloping rundown locations in Wilmington, Claymont and nearby communities. Wilmington News Journal story here.
  Bids were due last month, but there'll be no announcement on a winner just yet. "It's sort of like selling your house. You have to meet, you have to make an agreement," says Chrysler spokesman Ed Saenz.