Monday morning headlines

Gateway sold - again: The Irvine-based PC company is being acquired by Taiwan's Acer Inc. for $710 million. In addition, Gateway is ready to buy Packard Bell NV, which Acer would inherit. When the dust settles, Acer will become the world's third-biggest personal computer (HP and Dell are numbers one and two). It's worth noting that the per-share price Gateway is $1.90, 57 percent more than the closing price of $1.21 on Aug. 24, but 99 percent lower than in 1999. Here's the Bloomberg story, plus some background from the WSJ:

Gateway has struggled for years as giants H-P and Dell gobbled up domestic market share. Earlier this decade, Gateway diversified into plasma televisions and other consumer electronics in an effort to cut its reliance on PCs, but the move didn't work. The firm also shuttered the rest of its retail stores in 2004, five years after the company attempted to use that sales process to further leverage its then-reputation as a maker of reliable PCs at a low price. One time having as many as 24,000 employees, Gateway slashed its work force to fight slumping sales that resulted in mounting losses for the company. The firm took years to return to profitability as continued price drops and competition from Dell and H-P, among others, has pressured Gateway's performance.

Box office record: The summer movie season crossed the $4 billion mark, setting a new record for total domestic gross receipts (and far surpassing 2006's $3.6 billion). Keep in mind, however, that the numbers aren't adjusted for ticket prices or inflation - and the average ticket price this summer was $6.85 versus $6.21 in 2004. By September 3rd, attendance will be over 600 million tickets for the first time in two years. (Deadline Hollywood Daily)

Jail time in tax case: The owner of Camarillo-based Haas Automation, the nation’s largest maker of machine tools, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy in cheating the government out of $34.3 million in taxes. Gene F. Haas, who is the fourth and last defendant to admit guilt in the case, will be out more than $70 million, when adding on fines, fraud penalties and interest. He will also serve two years in prison. From the NYT:

According to court papers, the schemes stemmed from Mr. Haas’s “dislike of the federal judicial system” and anger toward Leonie M. Brinkema, a federal judge who presided over [a] patent infringement suit, which Mr. Haas lost in August 2000. The indictment said that the primary purpose of the tax fraud was “to recoup the patent infringement settlement payment by defrauding” the government. The scheme surfaced after Mr. Haas had a dispute with one of the participants, John Phillips, the former chief financial officer of Haas Automation. Mr. Haas sued Mr. Phillips, accusing him of cheating the company out of $27.5 million in the same transactions listed in the indictment. Haas Automation won a default judgment against Mr. Phillips, who then went to the F.B.I. and revealed the tax schemes.

Nielsen drops Spanish ratings: From now on, Latino TV audiences will be folded into the overall ratings measurements. A separate service for Spanish-language programming is being dropped. Nielsen had created the special index in 1992 after Spanish-language-network executives complained that ratings were artificially low because of a shortage of Spanish speakers in Nielsen's sample audience. Univision and Telemundo subsequently agreed to pay $40 million to help finance the creation of a separate system. In L.A., prime-time telenovelas on Univision's Channel 34 regularly out-rank the shows on English-language networks. (LAT)

Offices for Santa Monica: The big Houston-based commercial developer Hines paid more than $75 million for property at Olympic and 26th Street (the seller was a family trust that had held the land since the 1950s). Hines wants to build two- to four-story office buildings totaling about 300,000 square feet on the 7-acre site. They'll be looking for entertainment industry tenants. (LAT)

South Park's ad deal: Comedy Central, along with creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, have agreed to an arrangement in which “South Park”-related material appears on multiple media platforms, from cell phones to video games. The joint venture, which involves millions in up-front cash and a 50-50 split of ad revenues, begins with a three-year extension of the show and its creators’ contracts through a 15th season. From the NYT:

All told, people involved in the deal confirm that it is worth some $75 million to Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone over the next four years. But what is likely to draw the most attention in Hollywood is not the richness of the pact, but the network’s willingness to share its advertising revenue. Television networks have long maintained a wall between ad revenue and the compensation they pay the talent. As recently as 2000, Leslie Moonves of CBS erupted upon realizing that Mark Burnett, the creator of “Survivor,” had been given a share of revenue from its first season — saying this was tantamount to letting the inmates run the asylum — and a new deal gave Mr. Burnett a much bigger license fee instead.

Vindication on energy crisis: A Ninth Circuit panel agreed that the Federal Energy Regulatory System should have considered evidence that Enron had manipulated power prices before denying a refund request. As reported by Legal Pad, the case goes back seven years and the opinion lists 27 different law firms and government agencies that submitted briefs. The decision by Judge Sidney Thomas - and joined by Judges Richard Clifton and M. Margaret McKeown - did not engage the merits of the actual case.

A FERC administrative law judge dismissed the case in 2001 on the grounds that remedies aimed at the California market would cover the rest of the West. Several plaintiffs fought to keep it open, especially after the FERC released Enron documents in 2002 indicating that prices were artificially inflated. The FERC let the evidence in, though it eventually decided not to award further refunds. “FERC did not, however, respond to or take into account the new evidence of Enron’s market manipulation submitted with FERC’s approval,” Thomas wrote. That decision, Thomas said, was arbitrary and capricious.