Joseph J Pinola

First Interstate Bancorp on Monday said it would press its $3.4-billion bid to acquire BankAmerica despite BankAmerica's request that it withdraw the unwelcome offer. First Interstate's board of directors, in a statement, said the Los Angeles banking company intends to "pursue every prudent measure to bring about such a merger." But First Interstate stopped short of announcing a hostile takeover attempt and set no deadline for BankAmerica to respond to its merger proposal.

As the guard continues changing at California's top banks, the question increasingly asked these days is when BankAmerica Chairman A. W. (Tom) Clausen will retire. Speculation about Clausen's retirement plans have been building for a year, picking up the past week in published reports in San Francisco. Conventional wisdom has Clausen announcing his retirement before the bank's May 24 annual meeting, with Vice Chairman Richard M. Rosenberg getting the top job and Chief Financial Officer Frank N.

Anyone who shed a tear when the Robin Leach Decade ended with the 1980s can take heart from the April issue of Frequent Flyer magazine for business travelers. In an interview with the magazine, fashion mogul Donna Karan offers tips and a wish list for rich and famous travel. Karan says it would be "fabulous if there was a manicurist" aboard planes. She also would like relaxation tapes and electric seats that deliver a massage.

It's the tallest building west of the Mississippi: a 73-story, 1,018-foot spire that skewers the smog and adds one more vertical element to a once horizontal city. But employees at the First Interstate World Center, at 633 W. 5th St. in downtown Los Angeles, don't seem impressed with the building's record-breaking height or its interior opulence. Those who ride the high-style, high-speed (1,400 feet per minute) elevators think opulence is nice, but efficiency is nicer.

Nobody thought First Interstate Bancorp Chairman William E.B. Siart would go willingly into oblivion after Wells Fargo & Co. announced Oct. 18 that it was launching a hostile takeover of his bank. Observers expected all along that Siart would come up with a "white knight" or friendly merger partner to preserve at least some semblance of identity for the bank--and authority for himself.

Strong performance by its California bank and one-time gains propelled First Interstate Bancorp to record first-quarter profits. The Los Angeles banking company said Wednesday that its net income for the period was $132.2 million, 29% above the same period last year. An accounting change and tax benefits from previous losses boosted the profits by $37.9 million in the quarter. But even without those gains, profits would have been slightly ahead of the first quarter of 1988.

Contrary to common belief, those huge sums given by major donors to charity aren't always easily given. For instance, at the Music Center reception Wednesday evening in The Founders, feting Gold Circle Patrons of the Arts (donations of $500,000 or more), Distinguished Patrons of the Arts (known as DPA's--$250,000 or more) and Benefactors ($100,000 or more), Peggy Parker, who this year became a DPA, noted when asked how she was feeling, "I feel very poor."

In a major restructuring aimed at shedding weak assets and improving its position as a consumer-oriented regional banking company, First Interstate Bancorp on Wednesday announced plans to sell $6 billion to $7 billion in assets and eliminate 1,000 jobs, most in Southern California.

Joseph A. Ball, one of the country's most respected trial lawyers who was probably best known for his role as senior counsel on the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died Thursday at St. Mary's Hospital in Long Beach. He was 97. Ball, a longtime resident of Long Beach, had a courtroom career stretching more than half a century. During that time he defended such notorious clients as Watergate figure John D.

In an effort to boost the disappointing profitability of its California bank subsidiary, Los Angeles-based First Interstate Bancorp announced Tuesday a major reorganization that will result in the California bank splitting off its large corporate and foreign lending activities into a separate firm.