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Now that the deal is done - or is about to be - it's time to put down the knives and get real. Rupert Murdoch is not about to ruin the WSJ, as has been feared by our profession's self-appointed know-it-alls (man, have they been pills these past few months). Actually, he's going to help the paper get better - certainly more accommodating to today's multimedia world. The NYT's Richard Siklos, who has followed Murdoch...
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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July 2007
Stockpiling is definitely the order of the day. Off-lot feature filming in the L.A. jumped 29 percent in the second quarter and TV work was up 19 percent, according to Film L.A. It was the busiest second quarter since, well, 2001, when there also was pre-strike preparation (but no strike). "We may be seeing a repeat of what happened in 2001, when production rose prior to labor negotiations, and then dropped significantly after the negotiations...
Here we wanted to believe that GM's strong earnings, benign inflation numbers and better-than-expected consumer confidence would get the Dow back up to the 14,000 mark. But along comes another one of those little-known mortgage lenders that suddenly faces big-time liquidity problems because of margin calls. The Dow takes an about face and falls 146 points. But wait it gets worse, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac (courtesy of MarketBeat). For 13 of the last...
U.S. revenue for the second quarter fell 5 percent due to fewer larger concerts - as well as higher administrative and technology costs on its Web site (kind of a mushy excuse, no?). Operating income fell 24 percent from a year earlier. Barry Diller, CEO of IAC/Interactive Corp., the crazy-quilt retail/media company that owns Ticketmaster, said he expected the quarter would be tough. But not this tough. "We are not satisfied with these results -...
It's bad enough that L.A.-based Brad Greenspan is out of his league in trying to concoct an alternative to Rupert Murdoch's offer for Dow Jones. Now, the former co-founder of the company that developed MySpace is simply looking foolish - almost sad. In a letter sent out to DJ shareholders this morning (and available in a PR release), Greenspan claims that "five highly credible strategic and financial investor groups" are interested in pursuing a deal...
Market update: Strong results by GM and Sun Microsystems helped boost the Dow over 100 points in early trading, though stocks are starting to retreat a bit. It’s still pretty volatile out there. One not-so-wonderful indicator: consumer spending increased in June at the slowest pace in nine months as near-record gasoline prices and falling home values forced Americans to cut back. (Bloomberg) Dow Jones sale: It's happening. Just enough members of the Bancroft family have...
Reuters is reporting that the family controlling Dow Jones & Co. Inc.'s voting shares "has accepted" News Corp.'s $5 billion offer to buy the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. "The Bancroft family has accepted," John Prestbo, editor and executive director of Dow Jones Indexes, told reporters on Tuesday in Chicago. Dow Jones "will be part of News Corp," he said....
This is the British-based grocery giant that will open its Fresh & East convenience stores in L.A. later this year. So far, the company has gotten very good press, but later this week Occidental College's Urban @ Environmental Policy Institute will release what appears to be a not-so-wonderful appraisal on the potential impact of Tesco's expansion into the U.S. market. "Tesco has been especially adept at marketing itself as a socially responsible corporation,” Robert Gottlieb,...
As of early tonight, according to the WSJ, Bancroft family members holding about 28 percent of Dow Jones's overall voting power had committed to support the $5 billion sale to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Add that to the nonfamily shareholders - most of whom are expected to support the deal - and that might be enough. But it leaves Murdoch with little margin for error - as noted by the Journal, many of those nonfamily...
It was one of those hold-your-breath days that turned out pretty well - a 92-point gain for the Dow on a day when nothing much happened (no major economic reports and only a few big earnings). One curious development: Citi Investment Research raised the shares of L.A.-based KB Home to "buy'' (the stock was up almost 1 percent). Of course, keep in mind that KB has been in near free-fall for several months, so perhaps...
Time is running out on Chinese-made slacks and shorts being imported this year into the U.S. At the rate those items are coming in, the U.S. could slap an embargo as early as Oct. 22, which would be the tail end of shipments for the holiday season and the beginning of shipments for the spring. A little background: China is a World Trade Organization member that ordinarily wouldn't worry about quotas, but the U.S. imposed...
Financing for most every leveraged deal is getting a second and third look these days, but Jeffrey Donnelly of Wachovia Capital Markets seems pretty comfortable with the Bev Hills-based hotel chain being bought by private equity giant Blackstone for $47.50 a share, or $26 billion. As the proxy outlined, the deal is being backed by Bank of America, Bear Stearns, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. They'll finance 80 percent. Donnelly spoke to credit...
And they're off: Lots of volatility in early trading. More encouraging earnings this morning (Verizon, HSBC), but continued worries about credit markets and the subprime fallout. Markets were higher in Asia, but lower in Europe. In the first hour of trading, the Dow was down, then up and then down again. Nervous time: There were all kinds of assessments over the weekend about whether last week's market carnage was an overreaction or just the beginning...
Buyouts usually don’t just happen. The Bev Hills-based hotel chain notes in its proxy that Blackstone had been sniffing around since last summer. That's when CEO Stephen Bollenbach, along with a representative of Hilton adviser UBS, met with Jonathan Gray, senior managing director of the private equity giant. Bollenbach seemed interested (why not, given that the stock was trading at a lower multiple than other lodging companies?). But then Blackstone's price came in: high $30s....
So let's put a sock on all those "Don't worry about a thing" stock pundits. I'm officially worried. What seemed to be the makings of a small recovery early this morning - thanks to a strong GDP report - turned pretty nasty in the last few hours of trading. The Dow finished down 211 points, which puts it within reach of 13,000. Once more the culprit were those pesky debt markets. And if you want...
Hardly. The next time you read a story about Hollywood watching its pennies, it might be worth noting the sometimes brilliant and always bizarre former producer, whose credits include "Rosemary's Baby," "Love Story," "The Godfather" and "Chinatown. Evans is close to 80 and hasn't had a producing credit since 1999's memorable "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" - and yet, as Nikki Finke reports, his Paramount deal has been renewed once again. Why...
Be back later today....
Sure, it was ugly. But it was also a little strange. I mean, how did shares of locally based homebuilder Ryland manage to be up 1.1 percent, while the Dow was down 2.3 percent (or 311 points)? Why was KB Home off a mere 1.8 percent, while Guess was down 4.1 percent? There’s probably some sort of explanation out there (Ryland's second-quarter loss wasn't as bad as analysts had expected, for example), but it's this...
It's a tentative agreement. No details so far. Negotiators for the port clerks and shippers began meeting again this morning after lots of union saber-rattling about walking off their jobs. That would have shut down the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach because longshoremen wouldn't cross picket lines (even though the full International Longshore and Warehouse Union isn't involved in the clerks contract). "The employers are pleased that the union recognized the substantial investment...
It's about time. For several years now, the L.A.-based jeans maker was among the cluster of locally based denim manufacturers that were considered prime for takeover. Apparel giant VF is buying Seven $775 million (revenues this year are projected to run about $300 million). VF has long owned mass market jeans brands Wrangler and Lee, but the Seven for All Mankind deal marks VF's first major move into the riskier premium-denim market. A little background:...
This could be a bad one. The Dow is down by around 240 points, although it does shows some signs of stabilizing (as of 10:15). Perhaps we've finally reached the point where higher borrowing costs - and with it the likely slowdown in takeovers - are finally eating into the market psyche. And it's not just U.S. markets - the bad news is global. In New York, trading curbs, which are meant to reduce volatility,...
Wall Street jitters: This could be a rough day for stocks, much of it the result of growing concern about the unwillingness of credit markets to finance all those private equity acquisitions. Up to now, Wall Street was only too happy to arrange deals, but that's quickly changing. The latest example: Postponement of the $12 billion sale of Chrysler Group to a group of investors (though the purchase is still expected to go through next...
Now the union representing clerical workers is back threatening a walkout, which would effectively shut down operations at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Just a few hours ago it looked as if the union and the shippers would resume negotiations. "Talks are over ... We've gone as far as we could go and done everything we could do," John Fageaux Jr., president of the Local 63 Office Clerical Unit of the International...
Mouse House CEO Robert Iger said that "we should avoid doing anything that could, in effect, encourage people, particularly young people, to smoke." Not that folks necessarily copy everything they see in the movies, Iger noted, but actors who appear in films and on TV "can become role models and kids can at times try to copy the behavior of role models." It's a nice public relations move, but is it just a coincidence that...
They resumed contract talks this morning, just as port and union officials were preparing for a major work stoppage at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Operations on the waterfront appear to be normal. For several weeks now, Local 63 Office Clerical Unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has been threatening to strike and then pulling back at the last minute. Who knows what today might bring. (Press-Telegram)...
How else do you describe a 22.4 percent plunge in its stock price? That follows a comparatively mild 5.2 percent drop on Tuesday, after the Manhattan Beach-based shoe company reported a 15 percent drop in second-quarter earnings. So in rough numbers we're talking about a current share price of $22, compared with around $30 just a few days ago. Wowser! As usual with Skechers, explanations are vague: an increase in marketing costs for the launch...
Sardar Biglari only has a 1.2 percent stake in Applebees, but he's speaking out against the restaurant chain's proposed sale to Glendale-based IHOP. The problem, says Biglari, chairman of the Lion Fund, is that IHOP is getting too good a deal. "I believe Applebee's board has made a grave mistake in agreeing to an undervalued bid for the entire company," he said in a statement released this morning. "This arrangement is most alarming because new...
Market bounceback?: That's the expectation anyway, perhaps bolstered by strong earnings this morning by Boeing and yesterday's huge numbers from Amazon (released after the market close). But on the sour side, existing home sales fell in June to their lowest level in nearly five years (though the median home price was up 0.3 percent for the first year-over-year increase in 11 months). The Dow was up around 90 points in early trading, but now it's...
Well, what do you expect when the Dow falls 226 points? Countrywide took the biggest hit, down 10.4 percent, but other local issues got socked by 4, 5 and 6 percentage points (the Dow was off 1.6 percent). Most everything I monitor, with the exception of Activision, was down (it made news by being No. 1 in video game sales for the first half of 2007). Here's a sampler: --Avery Dennison -5.4% --CB Richard Ellis...
CEO Angelo Mozilo has a tendency to overstate market conditions - up or down - but when he said during today's three-hour conference call that "we are experiencing home price depreciation almost like never before, with the exception of the Great Depression''... well, that's bound to get investors' attention. And it did - Countrywide's 33 percent drop in second-quarter net income played a leading role in today's 226-point Dow loss. (Bloomberg) But it wasn't just...
The numbers of second-quarter default notices statewide were the highest in over a decade, according to Dataquick, which is pretty much what you would expect in a market that's seen the subprime business take a powder. But the results are hardly uniform; the number of defaults in L.A. County was less than half that of the first quarter in 1996 - a reflection of how bad the recession was in the mid 1990s and how...
Countrywide takes hit: This could be called subprime spillover. The Calabasas-based mortgage lender this morning reported a 33 percent drop in second-quarter net income and slashed its 2007 earnings outlook on expectations of "increasingly challenging" housing and mortgage markets. The earnings numbers were well below expectations. "During the quarter, softening home prices continued to affect many areas of the country and delinquencies and defaults continued to rise across all mortgage product categories as a result,"...
Service is expected to be terminated at 12:01 a.m. tonight (July 24). Customers of the mobile phone service reseller were told about the shutdown over the weekend through text message (paidContent). The L.A.-based company, which filed for Chapter 11 on June 1, said in court filings that it could not obtain financing to continue operating. Here is a lesson on the hazards of growth: Amp'd Mobile saw its customer base jump from 30,000 customers last...
Call it Bill Gross' second chance. Internet Brands, which is a collection of Web sites controlled by his Pasadena-based Idealab, has filed to raise as much as $100 million in a public offering. The company said that its various sites, including CarsDirect and WikiTravel.org, drew 24.5 unique visitors in June - and it's profitable, with first-quarter net income $1.4 million on revenue of $19.1 million. You might recall that Idealab was the brainchild of Gross,...
Never underestimate the fascination about Hollywood - even when it comes to chronicling where agents break bread. The NYT reports on what has been a dearth of expense-account restaurants in Century City, and how the folks at ICM and CAA - two recent arrivals to the area - are having to cope without the comfort of the Grill and Mr. Chow. The Style section piece tells the story of super-agent Ed Limato walking over one...
Workers ratify grocery pact: Final tallies are still not in but union officials expect better than 90 percent acceptance. The new contract calls for an immediate pay hike and a shortened waiting time for health insurance. Even Steve Burd, CEO of Safeway (parent of Vons) who led management's get-tough negotiating stance four years ago, seemed pretty pleased. "I applaud the UFCW International Union, the seven Southern California UFCW locals and our employer bargaining partners for...
L.A. entrepreneur Brad Greenspan has finally presented his proposal to recapitalize Dow Jones - and ward off the offer by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. In an open letter to Dow Jones shareholders, the plan includes a $400 million to $600 million loan that would allow members of the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones voting shares, to buy out others. DJ would then issue billions of dollars in debt to buy out half the common...
Sumner Redstone, never shy about shaking out the family laundry for the world to see, kept going after his daughter Shari today - the latest bit of nastiness coming in a faxed letter for Forbes' Robert Lenzner. Redstone reiterates his desire to have the board of Viacom and CBS select his successor as opposed to anointing Shari - even though he all but anointed Shari a couple of years back. Redstone says he would consider...
Just curious: Does anybody still believe the nonsense that government officials keep spewing out about securing our homeland? The nation’s chief homelander, Michael Chertoff, was in town today announcing a new strategy for resuming port operations after a terrorist attack. The plan covers 130 pages and includes stuff like making damage assessments and prioritizing cargo and vessels based on public health, national security and economic concerns. All worthy goals. But Chertoff, who talked about making...
June's jobless rate in L.A. County was 4.9 percent, up from 4.7 percent the previous month and 4.6 percent in June 2006. That's still within 4.5 percent to 5 percent window that indicates solid growth in the area. Statewide, the unemployment rate last month was 5.2 percent, unchanged from May. The U.S. rate was 4.5 percent. Total nonfarm employment grew by 2,200 between May and June, with leisure and hospitality groups posting the largest gains...
Dow pulls back: So much for that 14,000 stuff. Disappointing earnings from Google, Caterpillar and Ericsson are seen as a factor. In early trading, the Dow was off more than 125 points. Tribune could miss payments: It's hard to conceive that the much-maligned deal to go private might fall apart at this late date - and yet bond investors who must help finance the sale are spooked out. The company that Sam Zell took over...
He feels that DreamWorks has been treated shabbily under the ownership of Paramount Pictures, and BW's Ron Grover reports chatter about him wanting out once his contract runs out next year. We've heard these murmurs of unhappiness before and you can be sure the current grumbling is heavily orchestrated. Nevertheless, even the suggestion of a Spielberg departure is certain to be noticed. And if he were to leave - taking a bunch of his folks...
Maybe the department store giant wil eventually get gobbled up by private equity. But so far investors aren't biting. A day after Women's Wear Daily reported that Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts was in talks to buy the department store giant for $24 billion, shares in the company fell 1.25 percent (though the stock had been down as much as 3.1 percent). (Crain's NY Business)...
Here's an odd one. Citadel, which is a huge hedge fund manager out of Chicago, has urged the board of L.A.-based Gemstar-TV Guide not to sell the company to what it calls a "financial investor." That means private equity firm, which Citadel says was unlikely to pay what Gemstar is worth - as opposed to, say, another media company that might make for a better strategic match. Now it should be said that Citadel owns...
Redstone squabble: Chairman Sumner Redstone has had a major falling out with his daughter and heir apparent, Shari Redstone, that is expected to result in her departure from the Viacom board, the WSJ reports this morning. No details at this point, but the Journal reports that both sides are negotiating some sort of separation agreement. Earlier this year, Redstone settled a lawsuit with his estranged son Brent Redstone. From the Journal: The departure of Ms....
Shares in the parent of Vons were up 2.7 percent in an otherwise down day on Wall Street. One logical explanation could be the tentative deal between Safeway, Kroger and Supervalu, and the United Food and Commercial Workers. A full-blown strike never seemed very likely, but investors still remember huge losses from the disastrous labor dispute back in 2003. But sometimes Wall Street just isn't satisfied with the obvious, so throughout the day there's been...
As many as 1,200 copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" have been delivered to readers by DeepDiscount.com, which is soooo against the terms of a distribution deal that Potter publisher Scholastic is taking legal action. Apparently DeepDiscount.com got the books from distributor Levy Home Entertainment. (Retailers agreed not to start selling the book until midnight Friday.) Pages of the last Potter installment have popped up all over the Internet, which is getting the...
NBC will pull all Fred Thompson reruns of Law & Order if the actor/pol decides to run for president. That should clear up any equal-time concerns, though Thompson fans would still be able to see him in reruns airing on TNT. Actually, L&O honcho Dick Wolf has far bigger fish to fry besides Thompson. He must somehow revive a brand that's showing its age. As part of a big makeover, new actors are being brought...
Doubtful market: This isn't looking like the day the Dow will push over the 14,000 mark. Stocks have been down all morning because of more inflation concerns from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and new jitters in the subprime arena. New supermarket contract: Normally when a labor deal is reached, both sides claim victory - no matter how one-sided the contract might be. This time, though, it appears as if the United Food and Commercial...
Remember that scene in "The Devil Wears Prada," where the mean fashion magazine editor played by Meryl Streep orders her cowering assistant played by Anne Hathaway to find a copy of the yet-to-be-published Harry Potter book? Nobody has it, of course, but somehow, someway the assistant manages to pull off the impossible. OK, so the latest and last Harry Potter book - not available in bookstores until this Saturday - is still a pretty tough...
That's Computer Sciences Corp., which is a monster information technology company based in El Segundo that handles the really big computer projects (much of it involving the government and a lot of it quite classified). Anyway, there's chatter this morning about CSC being eyed by Blackstone, the private equity folks, or by Hewlett Packard. The stock is up 2.66 percent, volume is very high, and there's a bunch of option volatility - all of which...
Assuming that the Dow Jones board votes tonight or tomorrow to approve the company's sale to Rupert Murdoch, the final step would involve getting approval from representatives of the Bancroft family, which control 64 percent of Dow Jones stock. The WSJ reports this morning that Michael Elefante, the family's lead trustee, has scheduled a meeting for Thursday at which he would present the agreement and ask for their final vote. Elefante is expected to give...
It's getting to be a broken record - L.A. County saw a 32.5 percent plunge in June home sales from a year earlier (and things weren't so swift a year earlier). Actually, L.A.'s numbers don't look so bad next to San Bernardino County, which had a 50.1 percent drop in sales last month, and Riverside, which was down 47.2 percent (all numbers courtest of Dataquick). For all of Socal, it was the slowest June since...
Dow 14,000: It went over the magic mark in early trading, and then retreated, and then went over again, and at last check was just a shade under 14,000 (such see-sawing is pretty normal in these milestones). When it finally happens, there will be the usual hoopla, although traders tend not to pay much attention to round numbers. Murdoch closing in: The Dow Jones board meets tonight on whether to support the company's sale to...
It's the $5 billion offer originally made by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. As reported tonight by the WSJ, negotiators from News Corp. and Dow Jones - including CEO Richard Zannino and two independent directors - reached an agreement in principle. The full Dow Jones board will meet on the proposal tomorrow night. But even if the sale is approved by the board, it still must pass muster from the Bancroft family, which controls 64 percent...
This time it's over how many years would be required to reach top pay. The union wants seven years; the three major chains - Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons - are sticking with eight. It's hardly the basis for walking off the job, but it could delay an agreement between the chains and the United Food and Commercial Workers. There's been considerable progress on a bunch of other areas, and that led to rumbles about a...
IHOP buys Applebees: It's a nearly $2 billion deal that first surfaced several weeks ago - and attracted considerable skepticism on Wall Street because IHOP is a franchise-focused chain while the much-larger Applebees is made up of company owned-and-operated restaurants. It turns out that the Applebees stores will become franchises, a move that will help Glendale-based IHOP pay off debt. Applebee shareholders will get a 4.6 percent premium over the July 13 closing price. From...
This is only a supermarket, mind you, but it's downtown's very first in more than half a century. And it comes after years of delays that have provided a lightning rod for folks who have been skeptical about the downtown renaissance. Seeking out the higher-end crowd, Ralphs will offer extra-fancy produce and specialty products (sounds like a Gelsons wanna-bee). Friday is the ribbon cutting. It’s worth noting that sales volume at the store is expected...
Now we have private eyes being hired by the wild-and-crazy Henry Nicholas III to dig up whatever they can on Kenji Kato, who claims to have been the facilitator for the Nicholas-sanctioned bad behavior. We're talking mostly about supplying Broadcom friends with drugs and prostitutes – lots of drugs and prostitutes. Kato sued Nicholas earlier this year (zero news coverage for some reason), and the feds, who had been looking into option-backdating practices at Broadcom,...
Stocks still up: The Dow was up another 24 points in the first two hours of trading as the chatter will now begin about the index only being 100 points from 14,000. Black found guilty: The former CEO of Hollinger International Inc. was found guilty in a Chicago courtroom of mail fraud and concealing documents from an official proceeding, but a jury acquitted him of wire fraud, racketeering and several other counts. Wait for the...
Yeah, I'm here - along with my baby-pea sized kidney stone that has made things pretty miserable over at LABO (anyone who has struggled with one of these suckers knows what I mean). Anyway, since cable and percocet only get you so far, I've been making occasional swipes at the wires to see what I've missed. Actually not much, other than the quixotic adventures of those crazy kids from California, Ron Burkle and Brad Greenspan,...
No postings today; will try to be back tomorrow or Wednesday....
Airlines are a disaster. Airlines are looking up. Welcome to the wonderful world of bidness, where what's good for many is bad for many more. Just consider this story from Bloomberg News: Major carriers are cutting domestic capacity even as travel demand is rising, helping them fill more seats with passengers. That's sparking optimism AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and others will be able to raise profits and reverse a slide in...
Don't be put off by the denials of this morning's report in the British newspaper The Business that a deal is basically at hand. It's true that members of the Bancroft family haven't formally signed off on the $5 billion sale to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., and there is still some fit-and-finish to be worked out. But it's looking as if an announcement is only days away (which is what the British paper reported). John...
ESPN will be doing a lot of up-close-and-personal stuff in covering the soccer superstar's first game for the Los Angeles Galaxy on July 21 at the Home Depot Center in Carson. There will be an edition of "SportsCenter" at 3 p.m., a special called “David Beckham: New Beginnings” at 4:30, a pregame show at 5:30, and the actual game at 6. The sports network will use 19 cameras, including super slo-mo cameras and robotic goal...
All port workers and truckers were supposed to have the cards by the end of last year. Now, the launch date is more than a year away, according to the Apparel News (I'm not sure what happens to all those illegal immigrants, terrorists and criminals they're trying to keep out). Actually, it's good news for local truckers who are illegal immigrants and couldn't get by the criminal background and legal residency requirements. If too many...
Solid jobs report: Employers added 132,000 workers to their payrolls in June - slightly more than expected - and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.5 percent. Also, the Labor Department upped the number of new jobs in May to 190,000 (that's a strong revision) and wages grew. All this suggests that the economy has more traction than some had believed - and it also lessens the prospect for a drop in interest rates. Janet...
If Paris Hilton still remembers the stuff she said about giving something back to society (c'mon now, stop laughing), a good place to start might be her family's own foundation. Steven M. Hilton, president and CEO of the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation (he's third generation), sounds like an earnest guy wanting to build up the family's philanthropic side. The Hilton Foundation has more than $1 billion in assets - that's 58th on the list of...
Well, it's about time. Inquiring minds want to know when Telemundo newswoman Mirthala Salinas told her bosses she was having an affair with the mayor of Los Angeles - and who she told and what she said the nature of the relationship was and why the station apparently hadn't made it a big deal until the Daily News broke the story this week. While we're on the subject, it might be wise to ask her...
Let the truth be told: Science magazine has a new study out today in which the numbers are almost even-steven. Women: 16,125 words per day, men 15,669. Of course, the men and women studied were college students, whose behavioral patterns don't quite match that of the couple from Encino who have been married 35 years (with no one remembering the husband uttering a word for ther last 31 of them). The NYT Donald G. McNeil...
A pretty thick marine layer has kept temperatures mostly in the 70s on the Westside, but if you're heading to Vegas it's already 110 (of course it's that dry heat, so it only feels like 102). The California Independent System Operator, which controls most of the state power grid, has asked customers to conserve or postpone energy until this evening. Conditions were expected to be "challenging" from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. You would think...
Strange day: Man, talk about a morning when you don’t want to go to work. Don’t expect productivity to be especially high, what with the heat, the absences, and just two days to the weekend. After about an hour of trading, the market was appropriately flat. Other hotel deals in the works?: Now that Bev Hills-based Hilton has been snapped up, there’s a lot of chatter – and so far that’s all it is –...
It's hard to see how they don't. In a half-day session when nothing was happening, shares of the Bev Hills-based hotel company shot up 6.4 percent and volume was more than double the daily average. About six hours after the market closed, and after most analysts and press folk had cleared out for the holiday, the deal was suddenly revealed. A Blackstone spokesman told MarketWatch that the announcement "was certainly not engineered to come out...
It may seem hard to believe now, but the Hiltons didn't start out as a joke. --Conrad Nicholson Hilton was born in Socorro County, New Mexico to Augustus Halvorson "Gus" Hilton, a Norwegian-German, and Mary Genevieve Laufersweiler, a German-American. He got the hotel empire going by buying a small Texas inn in 1919. One of his famous lines: "Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." --Conrad Hilton had three wives: Mary...
This is not that much of a surprise. The Bev Hills-based hotel company has been a rumored takeover candidate for months, though one adviser close to the $26 billion, $47.50-a-share deal told the Financial Times that it had been put together quite recently. Hilton's board signed off on it in Bev Hills; it's espected to be completed by the end of the year. You can't help but feel sorry for Matthew Hart, Hilton's president and...
Here we go again. Just a week after the Blackstone Group began trading (its shares are down 4.1 percent from the offering price), private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. has decided to move forward with an initial public offering. KKR's IPO, which has been in the works for several weeks, is bound to raise new questions about whether the private equity boom is peaking (actually KKR has been relatively active in the last...
State officials are calling on residents to turn off their lights and turn up their thermostats between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. this afternoon due to a triple whammy of hot temperatures, a small plane crash that knocked down some transmission lines, and a power plant shutdown in San Diego County. Earlier today, forecast peak demand was seen exceeding available supplies, but the situation appears to be improving. All told, 1,900 megawatts of electricity were...
Talk about your HR challenges. If she hasn't already done so, Mirthala Salinas soon will be meeting with her boss - maybe her boss's boss's boss - to discuss, er, "the situation." Perhaps everyone over at Channel 52 knew about her relationship with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (the folks at City Hall obviously were clued in). But now that the whole world knows, those NBC-Telemundo-owned station managers must figure out how to deal with a pretty...
You wouldn't know it judging by the early box office numbers for Michael Moore's "Sicko" - the movie that was available for free all over the Web a full two weeks before being released. The early expectation was that the film's online presence would take a big dent out of ticket sales, but that hasn't happened. Might it be that pirated movies available for file-sharing will actually drum up interest in the days before the...
Holiday schedule: Wall Street has one of those half-day sessions (the markets close at 1 p.m. NY time), although there will be June auto sales and factory orders to chew over (factory orders fell in May, but less than expected). Expect light posting for most of the day. Package deal: L.A.'s Leonard & Partners is buying a majority stake in Dallas-based The Container Store, which sells those storage and organization items and has been somewhat...
Was it just a couple of months back when local TV news treated the increases in gas prices as a major story, a crippling story, a story with lots of !!!! marks and CAPITAL LETTER headlines and Sonorous Voices? I mean, the cost of a gallon of gasoline was nearing the $4 mark, and gee whiz, that had to mean somethning really baaaad. Er, right? Well, it's now July and gasoline prices have fallen -...
The aw-shucks Arkansas attorney is in Sacramento, representing 415,000 California car buyers who owned Ford Explorers in the 1990s. Oh, and he's after $2 billion. In the past, Ford has settled hundreds of death and injury lawsuits, but this time the automaker will be taking its chances in Superior Court. The suit claims that Ford marketed Explorers as safe family cars, but knew that a narrow build made the vehicles likely to roll over in...
Even the NY Post is left to calling it a rumor. But it's out there - and according to the Post anyway, it's being drummed by Imus' former radio station, WFAN. The buzz/rumble/chatter has the shock jock coming back by the fall. "When we return to our regular schedule this September, I hope the team will once again be complete," said Mike Francesa of "Mike and the Mad Dog." The Post reports that Imus has...
Stronger economy, but...: The latest WSJ survey of forecasters has gross domestic product growing at an annualized rate of 2.6 percent during the second half of the year and 2.9 percent in 2008. That's decent, if unspectacular, growth (GDP was 3.3 percent in 2006) – and with that growth comes renewed concerns about inflation, which could lead to higher interest rates. One in five forecasters saw a resurgence of inflation as the greatest risk facing...
You mean to say that people moving into apartments and condos within a few blocks of mass transit aren't actually taking mass transit? You mean that City Hall's haughty presumption that "if we develop it, they will ride" isn't turning out to be true? Actually, there's been little extensive research on the subject, but the LAT did the next best thing: Its reporters spent two months counting cars going into and out of four apartment...
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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