305 Beaumont Rd. in Devon, Chester County, PA. sold for $3.4 million. ( David Swanson / Staff Photographer )

In the Philadelphia region, Chester County is where the money is.

Chester County ranked 21st among the more than 3,100 counties in the United States by adjusted gross income for 2007, according to a new analysis of IRS data by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

(I hope everyone’s comfortable reading about adjusted gross income — you know, line 37 on Form 1040. It is the height of tax season, after all.)

Chester County, with average adjusted gross income of $96,578, was wedged between No. 20 San Mateo County in California ($96,775) and No. 22 Howard County in Maryland ($95,670). What’s remarkable is that Chester County’s AGI is nearly $16,000 higher than it was in 2003.

In that same span of time, the City of Philadelphia’s average AGI went from $34,886 to $39,660. It’s much harder to move that average given that Philadelphians filed 572,498 federal income tax returns in 2007, compared with 196,256 for Chester County residents.

Also among the 50 wealthiest U.S. counties is Montgomery County (No. 41) at $86,685. Five New Jersey counties were in the Top 50; all are north of Burlington County, which had a 2007 average AGI of $71,763.

Here are the stats for the other three South Jersey counties in our region: Gloucester ($63,807), Camden ($58,857) and Salem ($56,273).

Bucks County’s average AGI hit $77,180 in 2007, while Delaware County’s weighed in at $69,181.

What was the top county in terms of adjusted gross income? Goochland County, an exurb of the Richmond area of Virginia. Its average AGI was $137,045, far surpassing the $126,998 of Teton County, Wyoming, (think: Jackson Hole, ranchland for the wealthy, and Yellowstone National Park) and Fairfield County, Connecticut (likely turbocharged by the presence of so many hedge fund managers), at $117,425.

At the other end of the income spectrum is St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana at $9,959. The researchers called it a statistical outlier, because the area is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Second from the bottom was Jackson County, South Dakota, at $17,655.

Here’s how I know that “social media” Web sites can no longer be ignored:

There have been at least three meetings in the Philadelphia area this month on how businesses can capitalize on the rising popularity of sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

Most people have room in their lives for at least two social media sites, said John F. Pino, a Philadelphia entrepreneur. One for your personal life, and one for your professional life.

There are, of course, many other social networking sites to pick from, and more are being created all the time.

In fact, Pino launched one of his own in November: a professional and social network for people who plan meetings and events called i-Meet L.L.C.

Based in Center City, i-Meet is Pino’s first venture since he stepped down as an executive of StarCite Inc. in early 2008. He’d founded StarCite in 1999 and it has since grown to become a key online service used by those in the business of planning corporate events and meetings.

Hotels use StarCite to book their meeting space. Corporate meeting planners use it to shop for rooms to fit their needs and budgets.

According to Inc. magazine’s most recent list of the 5,000 fastest-growing privately held companies, StarCite had revenue of $46.3 million in 2007 and employed 400 people worldwide.

Still, Pino, 56, was itching to start another company. I-Meet is actually the sixth business he has created. (The others were a printer, motivational firm, medical communications company, and an advertising specialties/corporate gifts producer.)

“Over time, you see an underserved issue,” he said. “It’s happened to me all my life.”

I-Meet does not compete with StarCite, on whose board Pino still serves. But it does address the same talent pool: the estimated 5 million people globally involved in the meeting planning business.

His social network will try to help meeting planners enhance their careers and collaborate better with their peers. “Economically, this is a powerful group,” Pino said, given all the expense that goes into planning and holding a meeting.

Pino has signed up 5,000 members in 80 countries since the Nov. 18 launch of i-Meet. How many people can an “industry-specific social network” really attract? He said he thinks it can reach 1 million. (In comparison, the broader professional network LinkedIn has more than 36 million members.)

I-Meet is self-funded by Pino, compared with StarCite, which was spun off from the corporate confines of McGettigan Corporate Planning Services and then received millions in financing from venture capital firms. His new company has eight employees here and eight more in Singapore and China. “It’s a huge bet for me at this point,” he said.

Talk about a difficult time to launch a new venture. Never mind the recession. After the details of two meetings planned by American International Group became known last fall, some in Congress blasted companies who’d received bailout funds for their spending on corporate events.

Don’t look to Pino to defend AIG. “There’s no question that there have been abuses,” he said. “But the overwhelming majority do things right. Businesses need face-to-face contact. It’s one of the most effective ways of communication.”

Still, he does think that Congress is overreacting. Government should not be regulating what kinds of meetings companies can and cannot have, he said.

As bad as the economy is, Pino contends that the times are forcing people in the meetings and events business to do things differently. The challenges have “people reaching out in an unprecedented way,” he said.

He hopes to capitalize on their reaching out through his social media site.

Social Meeting

Thought it was just hyperbole to suggest that business can’t escape social media now?

Here’s an upcoming event: The Cherry Hill Public Library will host “The Missing Link: Social Media Marketing for Business Owners and Professionals” on April 16 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

It’s a free workshop, but the library requires you to register online at its Web site or by calling 856-903-1202.

UPDATE: When I first posted on Monday, I typed in the wrong date. April 16th is the date of the event. Sorry for messing up your calendars.

Softening Profits

Profits eroded throughout corporate America during the fourth quarter.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis last week said corporate profits fell $250.3 billion, or 16.5 percent, between the third and fourth quarters. They dropped $18.5 billion, or 1.2 percent, between the second and third quarters.

At $1.26 trillion, pre-tax corporate profits haven’t been this “low” since the third quarter of 2004 when they were $1.22 trillion. Their all-time high of $1.71 trillion in the third quarter of 2006 seems very far away.

As with most economic statistics, it’s the direction that matters and corporate profits have declined for six straight quarters.

The vaporization of profits in the financial sector is also plain from the report. (Yes, it’s not all red ink and government rescues.) The $122.4 billion in financial-sector profits for the fourth quarter was the lowest since the $226.8 billion in the third quarter of 2001.

Among the nonfinancial sectors, manufacturing recorded the biggest decrease in profits. Within manufacturing, motor vehicles continued to be the only sector that had operating losses - $28 billion in the fourth quarter.

For all of 2008, corporate profits declined 10.1 percent. Profits decreased 1.6 percent in 2007.

With Merck & Co. Inc. buying Schering-Plough Corp., everyone expects there will be job cuts once the deal is done.

But layoffs going on right now?

The prominent pharmaceutical blog In the Pipeline has posting today about layoffs at Merck R&D operations in West Point (Montgomery County) and in Montreal.

You can read the post here.

Some commenters to the posting say that these are cuts that have been the works before the Schering-Plough deal was announced. That could mean any layoffs now are part of Merck CEO Richard Clark's "Plan to Win" restructuring, which is into its fourth year.

UPDATE: Ian McConnell from Merck's media relations office e-mailed me Friday afternoon with the following statement:

The restructuring is based on a careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of our basic research organization aimed at better alignment of our staff and resources. These changes are the latest step in our, previously announced, strategy focused on improving the productivity of research and development efforts.

In October, Merck did announced that it planned to cut 7,200 jobs worldwide. Those cuts were be completed by 2011 and represented about 12 percent of the Whitehouse Station, N.J. company's worldwide workforce.

Profits eroded throughout corporate America during the fourth quarter.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis yesterday said corporate profits fell $250.3 billion, or 16.5 percent, between the third and fourth quarters. They dropped $18.5 billion, or 1.2 percent, between the second and third quarters.

At $1.26 trillion, pre-tax corporate profits haven’t been this “low” since the third quarter of 2004 when they were $1.22 trillion. Their all-time high of $1.71 trillion in the third quarter of 2006 seems very far away.

As with most economic statistics, it’s the direction that matters and corporate profits have declined for six straight quarters.

The vaporization of profits in the financial sector is also evident from the report. (Yes, the sector did have profits in the fourth quarter.) The $122.4 billion in financial-sector profits for the fourth quarter was the lowest since the $226.8 billion in the third quarter of 2001.

Among the nonfinancial sectors, manufacturing recorded the biggest decrease in profits. Within manufacturing, motor vehicles continued to be the only sector that had operating losses - $28 billion in the fourth quarter.

For all of 2008, corporate profits declined 10.1 percent. Profits had decreased 1.6 percent in 2007.
 

One reason I read announcements about who’s been hired or promoted is that often they contain more news than the company intended.

Yesterday, Lighting Science Group Corp. said it hired an investment-banking executive named Katy Reynolds as its senior vice president of strategy and finance.

The press release said she will be based at the company’s Westampton offices, which are, in fact, its corporate headquarters.

Welcome, Katy Reynolds, but the real news is that the Philadelphia area is now home to a publicly traded “cleantech” company.

Lighting Science recently moved its headquarters from Dallas to Burlington County, where 35 of its 250 employees work. You probably have surmised that it’s in the lighting business. Specifically, it applies light-emitting diode technology to replace incandescent lights in all sorts of places.

The reason it’s now here is that Lighting Science bought a small tech company based in South Jersey called Lamina Lighting Inc. in July for $4.5 million in cash.

Founded in 2001, Lamina was a spinoff from Sarnoff Corp., the corporate R&D operation that was once known as RCA Laboratories.

Backed by about $16 million in venture capital, Lamina developed its high-power LED lighting technology. That’s right: Built with $16 million and sold for $4.5 million. (Lighting Science could pay the sellers an additional $10.5 million depending on the level of 2009 sales of products developed by Lamina.)

Like so many companies in the cleantech sector, Lighting Science is big on potential rather than profits. The company has not released its 2008 financial results. For the quarter ended Sept. 30, Lighting Science lost $11.7 million, or 41 cents per share, on revenues of $5.6 million.

That makes Lighting Science a tiny player in the fast-growing LED market dominated by Philips Electronics, Cree and General Electric.

Lighting Science, which trades on the OTC Bulletin Board under the symbol LSCG, is controlled by a New York private-equity firm, called Pegasus Capital Advisors. Yesterday, its shares closed unchanged at 75 cents.

When I heard the latest rumor involving a possible purchase of Allergan Inc. by GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., I had to shake my head: Allergan was once a part of the world’s second-largest pharmaceutical company.

In 1989, Allergan was spun off by Philadelphia’s SmithKline Beckman Corp. as part of its merger with Beecham Group P.L.C.

Twenty years later, Irvine, Calif.-based Allergan is now best-known for its Botox wrinkle treatment. In fact, Allergan and GlaxoSmithKline have an agreement to bring Botox to Japan and China. Botox accounts for more than a quarter of Allergan’s $4.4 billion in annual revenues.

Neither company is commenting on the rumor, which merits attention only because of the recent M&A activity in the pharmaceutical sector. Merck & Co. agreed to buy Schering-Plough for $41.1 billion on March 9. Pfizer said in January it would buy Wyeth for $68 billion.

Talking Turkey

A couple months ago, I wrote about a New York company with local ties trying to go public.

Changing World Technologies Inc. makes renewable diesel fuel oil from turkey-processing waste and has a research lab in South Philadelphia.

Well, Changing World not only dropped plans for an initial public offering, but also filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month.

I didn’t see how the company could sell fuel for $1.19 per gallon that cost $11.18 per gallon to make at its Missouri factory.

Given that math, is it any wonder that Changing World proved to be a turkey with investors?

People Moves

Bruce D. Armon has been named managing partner of the Philadelphia office of Saul Ewing L.L.P. Armon, who specializes in corporate healthcare law, will oversee more than 100 lawyers.

He succeeds Frederick D. Strober. (David Antzis remains Saul Ewing’s managing partner.)
 

After the tech stock bubble burst in 2000, lots of companies were blasted for repricing stock options awarded to their employees.

Care to guess what’s going on now?

Research firm Equilar Inc. told Bloomberg News that 114 companies, including Google and Intel, have proposed or completed plans to permit exchanges of “underwater” options since early 2008.

Options are said to be underwater when the current market price is lower than the option exercise price. In a repricing, companies are offering a do-over: Replacing worthless options with others pegged at lower prices.

At least, shareholders now have a say. Since 2003, the New York Stock Exchange has required listed companies to put repricings up for a vote.

This spring, we’re seeing lots of those, including one from Entercom Communications Corp., the radio station operator based in Bala Cynwyd.

Given the trillions of dollars of wealth destruction in the stock market over the last year, shareholders are “going to be skeptical” of options exchange programs, said David Wise, senior consultant in the New York office of Hay Group.

That said, doing so may be appropriate for some firms whose top talent could walk across the street to a competitor, he said.

Entercom wants shareholders to OK a program that would allow 207 employees to exchange their underwater options for fewer shares of restricted stock. The trade-off gives employees actual stock instead of the right to buy it.

For example, CEO David J. Field now has 765,000 options outstanding - 625,000 of them underwater. He could exchange them for 250,000 shares of restricted stock, worth a total of $270,000.

In all, employees could exchange 2.24 million options under the proposal. The exercise prices of those options range from $12.31 to $52.05. Entercom shares closed yesterday at $1.17, up 8 cents.

The company makes several arguments for the move, including restoring incentives to key employees and reducing potential for shareholder dilution.

And Entercom’s had an option exchange program before - in 2006.

Shareholders approved it with 85.2 million shares in favor and 17.7 million against.

Redlasso Inc., the Webbased video clipping service that’s been dormant since July, is ready to ride again.

The King of Prussia company shut access to its service after several television networks sued it for copyright and trademark infringement.

That litigation was settled in late October. Yesterday, Redlasso announced it had struck a deal with Fox Television Stations - one of the plaintiffs - for rights to syndicate local news content from the 16 Fox stations that have broadcast news operations, including Fox29 in Philadelphia.

Still no deal with Fox News Network, which handles its cable-produced content.

Redlasso’s technology had been a favorite among bloggers, because it was easy to find clips of network TV interviews and imbed them into blog posts. Too easy: Redlasso hadn’t gotten permission from any content provider to record and distribute its work.

That led to a legal showdown that could’ve spelled the end for the two-year-old start-up and opportunity for competing services, such as 1Cast Inc. and Voxant Inc.

Bloggers should not notice any change in how the service works when Redlasso restarts in early April, said its CEO Al McGowan.

Ron Stitt, Fox Television Stations’ vice president of digital media, said in an interview that the company’s agreement with Redlasso is one of several it has with other technology firms to expand the online reach of its content.

The two companies will share advertising revenue, he said.

Redlasso requires bloggers and news-oriented Web sites to register in order to use its service, which allows them to search the content, create customized clips and imbed them in a blog posting.

McGowan said Redlasso is working to reach deals with other media companies.

Reader soapbox

As a stockholder in four or five companies myself, I would not be dissatisfied with corporate leadership that demonstrates they are part of the solution and not just another contributor to our current problems. Dividends can wait for a while! Keeping employees working right now is an investment in everyone’s future.

- Bob Girondi, of Ardmore, reacting to last week’s column about Gov. Rendell’s calling on Sunoco Inc. to reverse its decision to lay off 750 people at a time when the oil refiner and marketer is posting big profits.