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The last trading day of 2006 ended on a down note, with the Dow falling 38 points. But overall this was a very good year, with the Dow gaining 16 percent - its best showing since 2003 (and breaking through the 12,000 level for the first time). Last year, the blue-chip average lost 0.61 percent. The S&P 500 was up 14 percent and the Nasdaq was up 10 percent. The markets really took off in...
LA Biz Observed archive
Mark Lacter covered business, the economy and more here from 2006 until his death on Nov. 13, 2013.
The entire LA Biz Observed archive — more than 10,000 blog posts by Mark —
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December 2006
This might have started a few days back, but today is the first time I've seen a Daily News story prominently featured on the Daily Breeze Web site (it's the gas prices piece). The Breeze is now part of Dean Singleton's MediaNews empire, so that means stories are shared among the company's Socal properties. That includes the Daily News, Long Beach Press-Telegram, Pasadena Star-News, Whittier Daily News and San Gabriel Valley Tribune, San Bernardino Sun,...
Several candidates come to mind, but my favorite is how the runup in gas prices would severely impact the economy - perhaps leading the nation to recession. Well, it didn't turn out that way, despite the average per-gallon price in L.A. being 41 cents higher than at this time a year ago (and that's down from earlier in the year). Some economists were bracing for the worst because the economy has a history of falling...
It's sure looking that way, considering that opponents of extending the city's Living Wage law to LAX-area hotels have supposedly rounded up 100,000 signatures, more than twice the number required to put the matter to voters in May. Up until now, the Living Wage ($9.39 an hour with health coverage and $10.64 without) has only applied to companies doing business with the city. The Council voted to extend the ordinance because LAX hotels benefit from...
An announcement by the New York Stock Exchange is expected shortly. Nasdaq has already announced plans to be closed as part of the national day of mourning for President Gerald Ford. There's been some talk about the markets just being closed for a few hours on Tuesday in order to avoid a four-day break from trading - the longest stretch since 9/11. Tradition is for the financial markets to be closed on the day of...
You might recall plans first announced last year by the L.A.-based home builder to develop thousands of homes on a 3,000-acre tract in Jefferson Parish, which is part of metro New Orleans. Well, the deal is dead - KB let its contract to purchase the land expire. A KB spokeswoman told the New Orleans Times Picayune that the company couldn't come to terms with Joseph Marcello, owner of the land. A lawyer for Marcello speculated...
It was a challenge to get a ticket on Christmas Day, when sell-out crowds prompted some theaters to add late shows. The musical's one-day take of $8.7 million (that's in only 852 theaters) beat studio expectations and is likely to generate considerable word-of-mouth just in time for award season. But in his online Gold Derby blog, the LAT's Tom O'Neil has doubts on whether the musical starring Eddie Murphy, Beyonce Knowles and Jamie Foxx has...
The arrangements, to be announced sometime today, will likely involve a small private ceremony in Palm Desert, where the public will be given an opportunity to pay respects. In Washington, there will be a period of public mourning. Whenever the funeral happens, the stock market will shut down, a long-standing tradition. This morning, the New York Stock Exchange observed a two-minute moment of silence for the 38th President of the United States....
There's been a fair amount of blog chatter among foodies about the last days of L'Orangerie, the grand dame of L.A.'s French restaurants. Not to sound like a cliche, but it really is the end of an era in L.A. dining that goes back nearly 30 years. Forget about getting a reservation in time for the Dec. 31 close - everything is booked solid. In its three decades, L'Orangerie has had only nine chefs, which...
They're up more than 20 cents a gallon since Nov. 6, just as the holiday sales season was getting started. Whether those two or three extra bucks a tankful had any impact on consumer buying decisions in November and December is a debatable point - especially since higher gas prices earlier in 2006 had only a limited effect on the overall economy. And yet the price vulnerability among low-income workers is worth noting. For the...
In the absence of any big news this week, it doesn't take much to get traders and investors thinking about next year's economy. The decent-but-not-great holiday sales season will certainly do the trick. Though the overall market was up today, many retail stocks fell, including L.A.-based Guess (down 1.87 percent, to $59.86) and City of Industry-based Hot Topic (down 1.89 percent, to $13.00). Among the major players, Target, Amazon, Best Buy and Federated Department Stores,...
We're here all week, but as you can guess the news machine is mostly in sleep-mode until next Tuesday. So expect limited posting until Jan. 2 and no Morning Headlines....
"Disappointing" is the word being bandied about this morning. Visa USA said sales rose 6.5 percent in November and December, down from its initial forecast of 7.5 percent. In 2005, sales rose 8.3 percent. But the early numbers still point to 6 and 7 percent increases over a year ago, which is pretty much what many analysts had projected. Also don't forget the post Christmas action - as well as shoppers redeeming all those gift...
Socal's affluent residents - we're talking annual income of more than $200,000 - give away twice as much of their wealth as those in other parts of California, according to a study by NewTithing Group. Silicon Valley is still tops when looking at the average size gift. But a few large donations skewed the average. Socal gives more when measured by median share of liquid assets. Tim Stone, director of NewTithing Group, told the LAT...
You knew it had to happen. After being pummeled pretty consistently these past 10 days for her scurrilous ways, the ousted L.A.-based book publisher is picking up some defenders. LAT Book Editor David Ulin writes in this morning's Current section that "it's hard not to feel some regret" about Regan's firing. Ulin plays up the local angle, pointing out quite correctly that Regan's decision to move her imprint to L.A. from New York provided a...
The editor of West magazine told his staff today that he has given notice to become a senior fellow at New America Foundation. But he will continue to write for the LAT on a contract basis as a once-a-week business columnist. His focus will be on California-related issues (Biz section has been without a general business columnist since Michael Hiltzik lost his twice-a-week Golden State gig.) Word around the magazine is that the number of...
Remember when L.A. officials tried to convince Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group to eadquarter its new U.S. airline here? The airline would be creating about 1,500 jobs nationwide (500 in the headquarters city) and try to replicate the success of JetBlue and other low-cost carriers. As it turned out, L.A. wasn't selected; it didn't even make the short list. Virgin wound up choosing Burlingame and planned an S.F.-N.Y route to start things out. But now,...
But things are hardly normal. Two runways were opened at around 10 a.m. and they're hoping to clear two more later in the day (Denver has six). Meanwhile, flights and passengers continue to back up on one of the busiest flying days of the year. That backup has impacted L.A.-area airports, too. Best to check on the status of your flight before heading out. Denver Post *Update: A third runway was opened this afternoon and...
L.A. County's jobless rate fell to 4.2 percent in November, which is the lowest level in at least 30 years. A year earlier, it was 5.3 percent. If you throw in all the folks working in L.A.'s cash-only underground economy, the percentage might be lower. By comparison, California's jobless rate last month was 4.6 percent and the nation was at 4.5 percent. Almost 20,000 jobs were added in L.A. County from a month earlier -...
In the media world, five years is ancient history. Consider the case of Rupert Murdoch, who in October 2001 lost out in his bid for DirecTV. At the time, the El Segundo-based satellite service was considered his ticket to providing News Corp. - the parent of Fox television, Twentieth Century Fox etc. - with a fool-proof distribution platform that couldn't be derailed by those pesky cable companies. BW reported at the time that when Murdoch's...
Travel mess: The big problem, of course, involves getting in and out of Denver, where the airport isn't even scheduled to reopen for another few hours. LAT estimates that 10,000 passengers out of LAX could be scrambling for alternatives. The storm-related closures will have a cascading effect on the entire system. Around 1.75 million passengers will pass through LAX from today through Jan. 2, up slightly over the same period last year. Gas prices jump:...
The long-discussed plan for News Corp. to hand over its controlling stake in the El Segundo-based satellite service to Liberty Media was announced this morning. In return, Liberty, which is controlled by media tycoon John Malone, will relinquish a 16 percent stake in News Corp. valued at $11 billion. Some backstory from the WSJ Relations between Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Malone, once allies, have been tense since Liberty accumulated a large voting interest in News...
That's been the heavy-duty speculation going into the 2007 acquisition season. Merrill Lynch's David Anders added more fuel to the fire today by naming the Beverly Hills-based hotel company an obvious candidate, most likely through a private equity deal. (The stock took a bit of a tumble today after reaching its 52-week high last week.) Hilton recently projected that earnings would grow 16-22 percent through 2009 - no doubt helped along by increases in room...
Well, at least in advance of an expected appeal. Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs overturned the law that would give Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa a large say in how the school district is run. The school district had been fighting it. The law had been scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1. LAT...
Laura Mecoy, who has been in the L.A. office for 14 years, says she's considering whether to relocate her family to Sacramento, where she would be offered a job with the paper. Sacramento Business Journal reports that it's part of the "voluntary separations" that the paper is offering to a few of its editorial staff. Everybody insists that no layoffs are involved (even though folks in the newsroom are feeling a mite uneasy). Also being...
The old palooka (and I do mean old) scored a more-than-respectable $6.2 million on opening day - a mid-week opener to boot. Seen on 2,752 screens, that's a per-screen average of $2,267. Whether the MGM release can last more than a few more rounds is up in the air, what with several big features opening Friday. They include "Night at the Museum," "We Are Marshall" and "The Good Shepard." But my money is still on...
Chandlers and Tribune: Representatives of the newspaper family were in Chicago this week to hear a sales presentation on the company. Chicago Tribune reports that Gannett and reps for Ron Burkle and Eli Broad also were given presentations (the Burkle-Broad session was in L.A.). The information from those meetings will be used in the bidding process. Apparently, the Chandlers have explored teaming with Broad and David Geffen, as well as Burkle. Tribune Co. has set...
Demographers are taking note of the dwindling numbers coming into California from other states. Between 2005 and 2006, net immigration statewide was just 146,000, according to the state Department of Finance. This slowdown was quite apparent in L.A. County, which saw its population increase by 63,497 between 2005 and 2006 - mostly through births and new arrivals from other countries as opposed to new arrivals from other states. All told, the county has a population...
When the L.A.-based real estate company was being run by Richard Ziman, the focus was strictly on Southern California (Ziman especially liked the Westside and suburban markets). But after Arden was sold to GE Real Estate earlier in the year, it became clear that the office landlord would be expanding its horizons to other regions and states. A taste of what's in store was just announced: Arden's $162 million purchase of five San Diego properties...
You have to feel for Irvine-based Taco Bell, which is struggling to get back fast-food customers as a result of the chain's E. coli outbreak. A national online poll conducted for USA Today finds that 1 in 3 frequent fast-food customers plan to eat at Taco Bell less often or not at all. Yet the poll also shows that 75 percent of those surveyed believe the chain did a "good," "very good," or "excellent" job...
BW offers its end-of-the-year roster, which includes some obvious clunkers (the O.J. Simpson book and TV interview, Hewlett-Packard's boneheaded efforts to obtain personal information on reporters, Sony's battery recalls and the E. coli outbreaks). Among the winners were campaigns tied in some way to MySpace or YouTube. Locally, the financial trouble at KB Home was probably the toughest PR challenge of the year, while the publicity surrounding the opening of H&M stores got some of...
For anyone who missed the former GE chairman the other night on Stephen Colbert's Comedy Central show, let's just say he's no Stephen Colbert. Actually, he came off sounding snide and rather unpleasant (maybe it was just nerves - there was a deer-in-the-headlights look about him). When Colbert asked why there was so much talk about CEO pay, Welch responded "There's not enough of it" and launched into the old supply and demand nonsense about...
Ticketmaster buys stake: The West Hollywood-based ticket service has picked up a 25 percent stake in iLike.com, where users exchange opinions and recommendations on artists. Purchase price is $13.3 million. The idea is for Ticketmaster customers to find out more about new music and iLike users to find out about upcoming concerts. Ticketmaster is part of IAC/Interactive Corp., Barry Diller's conglomeration of Web businesses. AP More Vitesse misdeeds: You might recall this is the Camarillo-based...
Coming to any conclusions about next year's housing market has become a thankless exercise because many of the numbers are conflicting and confusing. Nevertheless, Fortune asked Moody's Economy.com and real estate valuation company Fiserv Lending Solutions to offer up their best guesstimates for 2007 - and Stockton has emerged as the area poised for the biggest drop. Prices are expected to fall 7.1 percent next year and 5.3 percent in 2008. The L.A.-Long Beach area...
Many of them are noticeably later this year - presumably because online retailers are doing a better job at turning around orders. The key word here is presumably. Word around the LABO home office is that two orders placed on Dec. 13 with Harry & David haven't even gone out yet (and no estimated time of arrival). Best to keep a careful eye on the status of your orders, especially the ones being transacted this...
The Port of Los Angeles saw a 16.3 percent increase in the number of containers handled last month compared with a year earlier. That breaks down to a 17.6 percent increase in import containers and a 24.8 percent increase in export containers. The higher numbers are probably due to the port's extended hours, as well as the increased numbers of dockworkers. The Port of Long Beach saw a 7.3 percent increase in November. Not everyone...
If you're struggling to find a hotel room under $200 a night during the holidays, there's always downtown. The Sheraton has a $179-a-night special, which includes a bottle of wine, a cheese plate and daily breakfast for two. If you want the beach, however, be prepared to pay over $300 a night - if you can find availability. That's pretty much the story all over the U.S. Demand is up this year by 2.6 percent,...
This has been talked about off and on ever since it emerged from bankruptcy three years ago. FOH Holdings, the parent company of Frederick's of Hollywood, is merging with NY-based sleepwear maker Movie Star Inc. Under the deal, Frederick’s shareholders will receive 23.7 million shares of Movie Star common stock - worth $30.6 million based on Monday’s closing price of $1.29. Movie Star shareholders also have rights to purchase $20 million of new Movie Star...
The assumption has been that holiday shoppers wait to the last minute in the expectation that retailers will mark down their merchandise. Thing is, it might not be true. A survey by the International Council of Shopping Centers finds that the prospect of discounting ranked next to last among the eight choices posed to late-buying shoppers. The No. 1 reason is gift cards, which serve as a last-minute backup in the event that shoppers can't...
'Jewish cabal': That's the phrase Judith Regan apparently used in her conversation with the HarperCollins attorney - the conversation that led to her firing. The comment was related to Regan's claims that HarperCollins hadn't supported her during the O.J. Simpson uproar last month. News Corp., which is the parent of HarperCollins, released what it says are notes of the conversation. Bert Fields, Regan's lawyer, denies any suggestion that her comments were anti-Semitic. NYT, LAT Sunset...
Port of Los Angeles officials have made plans for the nation's first container-inspection facility on 14 acres of Terminal Island. Too bad there's no money to fund it. California Apparel News also reports that customs brokers are concerned the facility would delay the time it take to move cargo through the nation's biggest port complex. The high-tech container facility would be the first of its kind in the country, according to port officials, and would...
He's the owner of L.A.-based American Apprel and always seems to be in the middle of controversy, mostly for the company's sexually-charged advertising (he has taken pictures of semi-naked models himself and was said to have conducted job interviews in his underwear). Anyway, the NYT and WSJ are reporting that Charney is selling his company to Endeavor Acquisition Corp., a small publicly traded investment group, for $382.5 million. Endeavor is a special-purpose acquisition company -...
That's the Dutch parent of THR, Adweek, Billboard and Nielsen. All told, 4,000 jobs, or around 10 percent of the company's work force, will lose their jobs, although a VNU spokesman told AP that no layoffs were planned next year at THR or Billboard. Those pubs have already gone through a thrashing. The cuts are part of a huge reorganization that some say will leave Nielsen at the core of the conglomerate. Savings realized from...
Sounds like it's just in the talking stage, but the owner of NY's famous frank-and-juice emporiums has been expanding outside the city, and according to New York magazine (courtesy of Eater LA), is looking at opportunities as far west as Los Angeles. For the uninitiated, the original Papaya King opened in 1931 at the corner of 86th St. and Third Ave. At first, it was strictly a juice stand, but the German-American immigrants living nearby...
Tribune vs. Chandler: With little action from the outside, it's looking like Tribune management and the Chandler family will make competing bids for some or all of Tribune Co. LAT is short on the details because there probably aren't many. The Chandlers, who own 20 percent of Tribune stock, have been in talks with Ron Burkle about making a joint offer (what happened to Eli Broad?), while Tribune CEO Dennis FitzSimons is making noises about...
LAT reports that Judith Regan's sudden firing late Friday afternoon came right after a phone conversation with a HarperCollins attorney that included comments described by a Times source as "offensive." Regan's imprint is part of HarperCollins, which is a unit of News Corp. The lawyer was apparently working out problems related to an upcoming Regan book on a fictional "reimagineering" of Micky Mantle's life, which includes suggestions that the Yankee star and Marilyn Monroe were...
It's the 54-story hotel and condo tower that's the centerpiece of the L.A. Live complex, right next to Staples Center. AEG, the sports and entertainment development arm of the Phil Anschutz empire, has bought out KB's stake in the project and will develop the tower on its own. KB said it was bailing in order to focus on its core homebuilding business, which remains in pretty bad shape. The company is also dealing with a...
HarperCollins announced the dismissal of the wild-and-crazy editor, who created quite a stir with her plans for a book and TV interview with O.J. Simpson. The firing is "effective immediately" and was announced at 7 p.m. New York time (did they really expect this to go unnoticed?) NYT reports that HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, who announced the news in a statement, "has long had a strained relationship with Ms. Regan." The statement said that Regan...
The new owner of the Four Points Sheraton Hotel has rehired 12 workers who were let go earlier in the week and will pay the city of L.A.'s living wage of at least $9.39 an hour - despite efforts by other LAX hotel operators to fight the new ordinance through a referendum effort. "We are committed to paying all our workers the living wage and to improving the human condition of all our personnel in...
This one, from Entrepreneur.com, involves Valerie Bent, who two years ago was working for an L.A.-area investor relations firm she doesn't want to name (shucks, though I have a couple of possibilities in mind). Typical end-of-the-year bonuses were running up to 40 percent of an employee’s salary, based on how much the business had made that year. As at many companies, that was incentive enough to work hard (55- and 60-hour weeks were common) and...
Say what you will about Dean Singleton, but the guy is persistent. He's finally getting his hands on the Daily Breeze through a complicated transaction involving Hearst Newspapers. It's a paper he's had his eyes on for almost 10 years, going back to when he started bulking up on other Socal newspaper properties, including the Daily News. In early 1998, he actually had been in talks to purchase all of Copley Press Inc.'s holdings -...
As in public companies now having to report executive perks over $10,000 (from $50,000). The new SEC rule is already resulting in some juicy filings, as noted by Michelle Leder on her blog footnoted.org (courtesy of NYT's Dealbook). For example, Lockheed Martin, which still has a big presence in Socal, will be eliminating such perks as country club fees, tax preparation, financial planning services, tickets to sporting events and the use of Town Cars for...
Did you know that Americans drank 10 times as much bottled water in 2004 as they did in 1980, that the divorce rate is at its lowest level since 1970, that 75 percent of college freshman said their main objective was to be financially well off (compared with the 79 percent in 1970 who said they wanted to develop a meaningful philosophy of life), that 27 percent of doctors are women (versus 12 percent in...
Gas prices go up: The party's over, it appears. Refinery production problems have pushed up wholesale prices and that's having an effect at the pump. The latest Auto Club survey shows that the average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $2.50, which is three cents higher than last week, four cents higher than last month, and 21 cents higher than last year. But wait, it gets worse: Opec's plans...
Interested in showing up your neighbor with the hottest, coolest, hippest, trendiest, have-to-have-at-any-cost add-on for your house? Real estate author Mark Nash has a few ideas for 2007, based on a survey of 900 industry folks. Among his ideas, courtesy of BW's Chris Palmeri: Upscale garages: Think lots of cabinets, mini-fridges, A/C and heat. Man caves and Mom caves: Personal space where you can hang out without being hassled by kids, Sparkletts men, etc. Two...
Talking about stating the obvious. The Southern California Association of Governments came out with its annual State of the Region report and the results were not exactly shocking. The region got an "F" in mobility (that's traffic), a "D" in housing and education, a "B" for employment and a "B" for safety. Fine, but rather than spend time compiling information that we already know, wouldn't SCAG be better off focusing on ways to make stuff...
It's not the Monday after Thanksgiving, as the news stories would have you believe. It was actually this past Monday, Dec. 11 - two weeks before the big day. Online sales that day jumped 19 percent, to $661 million, from a year earlier. In recent years, retailers have advised leaving a couple of weeks to make sure everything arrives on time. But if you look at the WSJ.com chart of retail delivery dates, most of...
Was it just a few months back that Disney was considered in a no-win position as the distributor of Gibson's "Apocalypto"? Well, the film topped the box office charts in its first weekend, got generally good reviews and today it received a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign-language film (because it had the Mayan dialect). Turns out that the Mouse House is not just grudgingly releasing the film, it's marketing it as an awards contender....
At the closing bell, the Dow was up 96 points (it retreated a bit from earlier in the session). It was another new record high and, as usual, everyone was trying to come up with an explanation. And, as usual, there were plenty - including strong earnings by Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. But there also was some weird talk among traders that the rally might have been connected somehow to the hospitalization of South...
Chandler update: WSJ reports that the Chandler family, which is making noises about making a bid for part of Tribune Co., has no interest in re-entering the newspaper business. The family's interest, should no better deal emerge, would be to split off part or all of Tribune's newspaper group in a tax-free deal. Yes, tax implications remain a big part of the story - so much so that David Geffen's $2 billion offer for the...
Now that lettuce has been identified as the probable source - or delivery "vehicle" - in the outbreak of E. coli illnesses at Taco Bell restaurants, the next question is where did that lettuce come from? Taco Bell said it "was grown by various farmers and shipped to the company's former produce supplier." That supplier was not identified, but earlier this week Taco Bell announced that it had dropped Irwindale-based Ready Pac Produce and switched...
That's at least the view of 24/7 Wall St.'s Douglas McIntyre, who lists the Thousand Oaks-based Amgen as among the 10 most undervalued stocks in the U.S. His reasoning: cash flow is running 32 percent of sales. Analysts have been upgrading the stock as antitrust litigation against the company seems to be favoring the biotech company. Earnings in the last quarter beat forecasts. In case you're wondering, the stock is trading at just under $70....
While we're on the subject of rich and poor, perhaps it's worth noting that in this season of Wall Street bonuses Goldman Sachs is topping all comers, with reports that 25 employees of the firm are in line for $25 million bonuses each and that a handful might see their checks reach the $100 million mark. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, on the job for barely three months, is on tap for a $50 million pay day,...
Nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the gap between rich and poor is a serious national concern, according to a new Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll. Even a majority of Republicans - 55 percent - say it's a problem. This is a national poll, but the have- and have-not issue is especially relevant in Los Angeles County, which has 489,000 households bringing in less than $15,000 a year and 262,800 households with a net worth of more...
The NYT's David Cay Johnson likes to delve into some very complicated economic and financial stories. His latest effort concerns the network of lines that transmits electricity all over the country. Turns out there aren't nearly enough of them, which means that utilities must find other ways of getting at the juice. That often involves buying costlier power from nearby plants - something called congestion charges. This is a particular problem in several localities, including...
It's very small, but 1st Century Bank has gotten a fair amount of attention because it was started up by Alan Rothenberg, the lawyer and former World Soccer Federation President who is currently head of the L.A. Airport Commission. Anyway, the Century City-based bank has announced several senior-level changes that include the retirement of CEO Richard Cupp and the appointment of Jason DiNapoli as president and COO. Rothenberg, who is chairman, will assume the duties...
Housing settles down: The median price of an L.A. County home was $510,000 in November, according to DataQuick Information Systems, which is up 2.6 percent from a year earlier. Home sales fell 19 percent, although that was the smallest decline in five months (November is usually slow for housing but last month was especially sluggish.) Expect prices to flatten and possibly depreciate over the next few months. By the way, what happened to the Business...
Techcrunch claims it's gotten a hold of documents showing the progression of negotiations between Yahoo and the social networking site Facebook. An early offer by Yahoo of $37.5 million for 5 percent of the company was rejected. By mid-year, Yahoo offered $1 billion for the whole shebang (also rejected). Yahoo was supposedly going as high as $1.6 billion, but talks broke down and that was that. The $1 billion offer was based on the assumption...
The NFL Network is offering Time Warner Cable one free week of its programming, but the offer doesn't appear to include any NFL games - just the Dec. 28 Texas Bowl and the Dec. 29 Insight Bowl. The Texas Bowl pits Rutgers and Kansas State and apparently Rutgers fans in New Jersey were ticked off at the prospect of not seeing the big game. No word yet on what Time Warner will do. Both Time...
New ways to cheat: But you have to be a corporate executive who is already manipulating his stock option grants. The WSJ cites an SEC economist who has found evidence that playing around with stock options has been done as a tax dodge. From the WSJ: The reason it can be tempting to backdate the exercise of options lies in the way the Internal Revenue Service treats different types of income for tax purposes. Options,...
L.A. and other large Socal cities saw a drop in both central-city and suburban poverty rates over the period between 1999 and 2005. Good news, right? Well, not if the reason has more to do with poor families just leaving town. A report by the Brookings Institute shows that the strength of higher-wage construction and professional service jobs, along with out-migration of low-income families, explains the decrease in poverty. Within Socal, the L.A.-Long Beach-Santa Ana...
Searching the Internet for "construction laborer" and "Mexican workers" could turn up an outfit called Labormex Foreign Labor Solutions, which recruits laborers from abroad. It's become a convenient way to find workers, but the practice is also controversial. BW's Moira Herbst explains it this way: The reach and anonymity of the Net make it easy for ill-intentioned recruiters to set up a legitimate-looking online site while facilitating illegal entry into the U.S. Recruiters can also...
Shopping update: Retailers might get a break this year because Hanukkah starts on Dec. 15, which means an extra shopping push in mid-December when sales are often lukewarm. A sampling of Taubman Center malls over the weekend showed, on average, mid-single digit increases from a year ago, which is pretty much what analysts are expecting. Later this week come reports from ShopperTrak and International Council of Shopping Centers. Hollywood production deal: Weinstein Co.'s home entertainment...
His ultra-violent "Apocalypto" found enough takers over the weekend to top the box office charts. The R-rated story set in the last days of the Mayan empire grossed $14.2 million - with men making up about 60 percent of the audience. If you're not a Mel Gibson fan, take solace in the fact that the numbers from "Apocalypto" paled next to his "The Passion of the Christ," which scored $84 million in its opening weekend....
Could a place like Chandler, Ariz. offer its residents the same kind of retail offerings without benefit of chain stores? Could local merchants provide the equivalent variety and prices of, say, California Pizza Kitchen, Cheesecake Factory, Bed Bath & Beyond, Linens-n-Things, Barnes & Noble, Borders, PetSmart, Circuit City, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Home Depot, Pottery Barn, the Gap, Ann Taylor and Banana Republic? Well, no, which is why Virginia Postrel believes that chain stores deserve more...
It's inevitable that the popular video site would be getting some competition, so now we have Fox, Viacom, CBS and NBC Universal talking about forming a Web site that would mostly include content from their network offerings. The WSJ, which has the story in its weekend edition, reports that Disney's ABC isn't participating, probably because it doesn't want to get its branding mixed up with the others. From the WSJ: The talks are driven by...
I'll be traveling next week, so posting will be light and sporadic (no morning headlines). Normal posting returns next weekend....
Part of Kirk Kerkorian's mystique is that he simply doesn't do interviews. But that doesn't mean his friends and business associates don't. WSJ's Monica Langley uses the occasion of Kerkorian selling off his GM shares to get behind the mystique - and providing a bunch of juicy tidbits in the process. The closest she gets to a Kerkorian interview is picking up Kirk quotes from others. When the Beverly Hills billionaire decided to fold his...
You just knew that Disney animators would be getting the short end of the stick when the Mouse House purchased Pixar earlier this year. So this afternoon word came down that Burbank-based Disney plans to eliminate 160 jobs, or 20 percent, from its animation unit. (Don't you just love how this stuff gets released Friday afternoon?) Pixar, with 800 employees in Emeryville, won't see any cuts. That's what Disney is buying - Pixar's ability to...
The criminal case against the Compton-based supermarket chain is not over. At least the questions aren’t. While Ralphs the company has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, identity fraud and falsifying and concealing information to the IRS and Social Security Administration, no charges have been filed against any manager or executive at the company. So who was responsible for rehiring locked out Ralphs workers during the bitter 2003-04 labor dispute? In the December issue of Los Angeles...
This time, it's Keith Turner, president of ad sales. Turner, who had been with the network for nearly 20 years, was apparently tight with television group president Randy Falco, who left to head AOL. Needless to say, being head of ad sales at the low-rated network was probably not the most comfortable spot to have. NBC lost $1 billion in 2005 and isn't exactly wowing anyone this season. Sources told THR that Turner's successor might...
Does Beverly Hills really need a kosher steakhouse that also specializes in sushi? We'll find out next week when New York's upscale The Prime Grill opens in the Rodeo Collection. Management tells the Jewish Journal that the opening here means that L.A. "is finally catching up to New York in the Jewish culinary big leagues." Er, all right. But how do they separate milk and dairy? From the JJ: Prime Grill gives off an air...
Shares are down 6.1 percent this morning, at $26.01, after the Calabasas-based restaurant chain reported lower third-quarter profit and a sluggish outlook for the fourth quarter. Here's a case of a company unloading so much financial data at one time that investors and analysts don't quite know where to begin (its second and third quarter results had been delayed because the company was reviewing its option grant policies). The stock actually was up yesterday afternoon...
It was the biggest month of the year for the financial markets - stocks, corporate bonds, private equity, mergers and acquisitions. "It says to me that there is a tremendous amount of liquidity out there, and a lot of that is coming from large pools of monies, those being pension plans, foundations and endowments," said Joe Keating, chief investment officer at First American Asset Management, in the MarketBeat blog. Of particular note are the low...
So much for that investment: Turns out that billionaire Kirk Kerkorian is pulling out of GM entirely. The WSJ reports that his last 28 million shares have been sold for $29.25 a share to Bank of America, which has been a key lender to Kerkorian. All told, Kerkorian will make less than $100 million on his GM investment, which sounds pretty impressive to most of us, but considering that the guy plunked down $1.6 billion...
Mark Lacter
Mark Lacter created the LA Biz Observed blog in 2006. He posted until the day before his death on Nov. 13, 2013.The multi-talented Mark Lacter
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