August 16, 1996

Danskin Inc, 114-year-old company that once had women's athletic-apparel market virtually to itself, has fallen on hard times; sales have slumped 7 percent over three years to $125 million, and company is so hobbled by $40 million in long-term debt that it can barely afford to advertise; company's stock has been moved to Nasdaq's less prestigious Small Cap Market after three years in which company's losses exceeded its book value; some insiders wonder if company can survive; Danskin's desperate condition illustrates how excesses of 1980's takeover binge, combined with self-aggrandizing management, can sap strength of even strongest brand names; photos; charts; graphs (L)

Fugitive New Jersey businessman Roger C Day Jr, being held in an Italian jail, is indicted on Federal charges that he bribed Defense Department officials to win contracts worth about $400,000 to supply tools to military depot (New Jersey Daily Briefing) (S)

Softbank Corp announces it is acquiring Kingston Technology Corp for $1.5 billion; Kingston is world's largest supplier of add-on memory boards for PC's; deal moves Softbank into hardware manufacturing for first time; Kingston, owned jointly by founders John Tu and David Sun, had revenue of $1.3 billion in 1995, up from $800 million year before; Softbank will acquire 80 percent of Kingston for $425 million in newly issued Softbank stock and remainder in cash; Tu and Sun will own combined 4.9 percent of Softbank, largest stake except for Masayoshi Son, head of Softbank, whose stake is greater than 50 percent (M)

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, month-and-a-half after current budget took effect, orders $500 million in new cuts, saddling virtually every city agency with new round of sharp reductions; appears to be moving quickly to shore up soft spots in $33 billion budget and to address looming budget gaps in future that fiscal monitors have warned could trigger New York City's worst fiscal crisis since 1970's; cuts fall on top of $1 billion in reductions that were part of budget Giuliani and City Council adopted in June for fiscal '97, which began July 1 (M)

Down-and-out driving-range owner. Flirty and funny.