Archive by Month
March 30, 2007
The full Tribune board will be meeting this weekend to review the competing offers from L.A. billionaires Broad/Burkle and Chicago...
Just imagine, for a moment, that Uncle Ben, the rice guy, got a promotion - to chairman of the board....
Ever wonder about those big shot members of Sherwood Oaks Country Club, that glorious bit of real estate in Thousand...
Tribune update: There are no details of last night's revised offer by Broad and Burkle for the Chicago-based parent of...
March 29, 2007
The L.A. billionaires' revised bid is $8.2 billion, or $34-a-share, which includes $500 million in equity. Zell's bid was $33-a-share,...
Still quite a bit of chatter today about the Marie Antoinette-ish tactics of Circuit City CEO Philip Schoonover, who along...
It's not exactly a huge deal, but Pacific Title & Art Studio, one of Hollywood's earliest production houses, is being...
The annual U.S. News survey comes out tomorrow, but law bloggers already have the numbers. Among the locals, there's very...
Just don't tell our old friend Barry Diller, who still manages to make life interesting for us know-nothing, low-wage scribes....
Oh brother, yet another panel on the future of newspapers. Must they? Many of the usual suspects were on hand...
Tribune update: The betting still favors a Sam Zell acquisition by week's end, but the NYT reports that Tribune was...
March 28, 2007
It could very well turn out to be News Corp.'s 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million (sorry Viacom). Pali...
Yesterday's early drop was trimmed quite a bit by the close, but today's naysaying was just too much - a...
The big story in the homebuilding biz involves a federal investigation into the way Beazer Homes helped cut lending deals...
OK, you're running a pretty lousy company in a very tough industry and your shareholders are demanding that you do...
Wall Street jitters: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress this morning that the economy will keep growing - moderately -...
March 27, 2007
Funny what a couple of transposed digits will do for a media giant's respectability. News Corp.'s proxy lists a phone...
This might as well be an L.A. government holiday because many of the higher-ups were on Capitol Hill today lobbying...
The $142 million acquisition by Internet giant Intuit seemed all ready to go and then, Bam!, it's kaput. Electronic Clearing...
That's what Bloomberg News is reporting this morning - and it sounds a little more definitive than stories earlier this...
Housing jitters: Homebuilder Lennar Corp., which has a big Socal presence, this morning reported a 73 percent drop in first-quarter...
March 26, 2007
The latest iteration of the storied magazine - a weekend newspaper supplement that never gained much of a following -...
That's what the WSJ just posted, based on efforts by Morgan Stanley and Barclay's - two of the subprimer's biggest...
Now that downtown has added a few thousand more residents to the mix, film companies don't have the place to...
Strike vote authorized: As expected, workers for Albertsons voted to give union officials the authority to call a strike. No...
March 25, 2007
Eli Broad and Ron Burkle have just made life a little more uncomfortable for the Tribune boys who seem inclined...
Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not predicting the future. But sometimes it can be instructive to look for potential...
March 24, 2007
So the experts have finally weighed in: multitasking increases the chances of making mistakes. This would seem pretty obvious for...
L.A. County's February unemployment rate was 4.6 percent, unchanged from the previous month and well below the 5.0 percent level...
March 23, 2007
As in Teddy Roosevelt, the great Republican conservationist. I haven't paid that much attention to the governor in recent months,...
That's what the LAT is saying in a story posted on its Web site this afternoon. At $33, Tribune shareholders...
Well, for now anyway. The Dow finished the week at 12,481, up 19 points for the day and 3.1 percent...
Forget about sports or show business - if you want to make the really big bucks, just stick with oil....
Blue Cross fined: Not a lot - $1 million - but at least state regulators acknowledged that canceling individual health...
March 22, 2007
A bunch of local honchos, including L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, School Superintendent Brewer and L.A. Chamber Prez Gary Toebbin, are headed...
Ever hear of LoanCity? Me neither. It's a privately held wholesale mortgage lender based in San Jose that stopped funding...
KB tumbles: The L.A.-based homebuilder this morning reported an 84 percent slide in first-quarter earnings, reflecting the industry's slowdown, and...
March 21, 2007
Chairman and CEO Dennis FitzSimons sent out an attaboy memo to employees today and noted in passing that the board...
Quick quiz: A $10,000 investment in Starbucks in 1992 would be worth how much today? a)$76,000 b)$123,000 c)$301,000 d)$467,000 Answer...
Julie Roehm and Sean Womack actually kept a speaking engagement in Hollywood yesterday - and Roehm even addressed the brouhaha...
Fremont General is taking an important step this morning in an effort to stay in business: It's unloading its lousy...
Strike vote looms: What happened to the cautious optimism by negotiators for the major grocery chains and the unions? Apparently,...
March 20, 2007
I've given up trying to figure out what the heck is going on with those boys in Chicago, but for...
OK, so it doesn't have much to do with L.A. business, but Wal-Mart's countersuit against one of its former executives,...
Ever wonder what those rich private equity folks are really thinking? Well, a memo from Carlyle Group founder William Conway...
Here's a little regulatory filing worth noting: Michael Milken wants to sell $1 billion worth of his juggernaut of companies...
Mayor vetoes "air rights": He still seems to support the plan to sell 9 million square feet to developers -...
March 19, 2007
And with 62 separate award categories (that even tops the L.A. Press Club), there are only five L.A. nominees. Did...
Smith & Wollensky CEO Alan Stillman really wants to sell the steakhouse chain to Joachim Splical's Patina Group - even...
Cole's P.E. Buffet, which along with Phillipe's lay claim to the famous French dip sandwich, is being taken over by...
Stocks looking good: It's early but the Dow is up about 75 points after 90 minutes of trading. One explanation...
March 16, 2007
We seem to be in the goofy zone this afternoon, so here's one more: nightclub owner, film producer and man...
The Mouse House has finished up its inquiry into backdating options at Pixar, which it now owns, and has concluded...
ShaRon Lewis might have pulled a fast one. She was used in an anecdotal quote for the Times' March 10...
Is John McCain still running for president? You wouldn't know it, judging from the California bidness heavyweights who have jumped...
Looks like Joachim Splichal's Patina Restaurant Group has some company in the bidding for steak house chain Smith & Wollensky....
Zell losing steam: WSJ, NYT and Chicago Tribune report that yet another bid for the Tribune from yet another billionaire...
March 15, 2007
It's the annual Calpers rundown of companies that have failed in the area of corporate governance and financial performance. Ten...
That's what forecasters are telling the WSJ in one of the paper's periodic surveys. Slightly more than half of the...
There's a lot of rumble in the newsroom these days about people moving here to there - and some of...
Et tu, Dow?: Yeah, this is the Ides of March, all right, and the market has gotten so nutty these...
March 14, 2007
Not only that, but the market actually picked up 56 points on the day - not bad considering that the...
It's the old farts at Viacom vs. the youngins at YouTube. The old model of actually paying for content vs....
Can't this guy cut a deal without complications? The former Mouse House CEO has gotten the baseball card company Topps...
Literally. I've heard there's some sort of sign hanging over the LAT's Spring Street exit that reads -30-, which is...
Could be another tough one. The Dow is down about 80 points at mid-session, but more ominously the index is...
Market stabilizes: A fourth-quarter profit by GM has gotten Wall Street into a more positive mood this morning - the...
March 13, 2007
Just when you think the city of L.A. can't possibly get any more misguided about downtown development, along comes the...
Anything having to do with real estate took big hits - no doubt the fallout from worries about subprime financing....
That would be Korea's Red Mango yogurt, which opens its first U.S. location in Westwood in May. It was in...
As in L.A. attorney Robert Shapiro, who is representing Angels centerfielder Gary Matthews Jr. in connection with a government case...
Chick Hearn would have called it nervous time. Wall Street remains jittery about whether the subprime tumult might spill over...
Viacom sues Google: The media giant is alleging "massive intentional copyright infringement" of Viacom's entertainment properties on YouTube, which is...
March 12, 2007
Weren't prices supposed to be falling this year? So far, they're increasing. The latest February numbers from DataQuick show that...
The latest numbers released by the government this afternoon show that an average gallon of self-serve regular in the L.A....
That it's even being called as much is a sacrilege, but here goes: NY magazine's Grub Street discovers a place...
Another decent and unspectacular day on Wall Street. The Dow was up 42 points, with airlines, utilities and biotech issues...
Subprime mess: OC's New Century Financial said this morning that it's losing all short-term funding from its bank lenders, another...
March 09, 2007
•More complications for Amgen's anemia drugs Aranesp and Epogen. Both will get stronger warnings about serious health effects, including death....
Call it the illusion of originality. Instead of airing a plain old repeat that will get only so-so ratings, why...
Federal Reserve Gov. Susan Bies didn't tell us anything in a speech today that we didn't already know - that...
Decent employment news: The U.S. February jobless rate fell to 4.5 percent from 4.6 percent the previous month (that's the...
March 08, 2007
The Irvine-based mortgage company specializing in subprime loans has stopped accepting loan applications, which is another sign that the end...
There's being rich and there's being ludicrously rich. Forbes deals with that latter category in its annual ranking of the...
Based on an internal investigation, CEO Bobby Kotick is in the clear, as far as "intentional wrongoing" in the way...
Well, what do you think is going to happen when someone with a poor credit history can "buy" a house...
Back at those CAA HQs, Nikki Finke hears about a mandate to cut expenses by a whopping 20 percent. That...
He's Henry Winterstern and his resignation last week as CEO of First Look Pictures, an upstart independent, is another example...
Ratings-wise, the Katie Couric Evening News seems to be going nowhere fast, so CBS News President Sean McManus is bringing...
Verizon has a serious outage problem, so LA Biz Observed is more or less shut down for now. No morning...
March 07, 2007
Wallstrip.com has a video clip of the real Suze Orman and a made-up version doing an impersonation of Jim Cramer....
Katie Couric isn't exactly taking the ratings world by storm and Rebecca Dana wonders in Slate whether there are some...
The former Lakers great and his joint-venture partner, Canyon -Johnson Urban Fund, are providing $12.4 million of financing to help...
Toilets, refrigerators, beds, medicine cabinets and cereal boxes are apparently pretty terrible places, according to PFAdvice.com, which got the skinny...
At least parts of it. The Santa Monica-based subprime lender is talking to as many as six suitors, according to...
Flat market: A pretty low-key first hour on Wall Street (for a change), with the Dow up just a shade....
March 06, 2007
The stock market had a good day - finally. The Dow was up 157 points, or 1.3 percent, and most...
Michael Eisner could be in store for a bit of a rumble. As noted earlier, his investment company, along with...
Some of the high-end boutiques within a couple of blocks of The Ivy are shelling out $17 a square foot,...
Market bounceback?: They're calling it "Turnaround Tuesday" and stocks are indeed up this morning, but not by all that much...
March 05, 2007
Nikki Finke reports that THR's Cynthia Littleton and Anne Thompson are jumping to Variety. Littleton, who had been editor of...
They must be close to pulling the plug at Irvine-based New Century, while Fremont General's condition is extremely critical. It's...
Another bad day: Well, a bad opening, for sure. Asian and European markets were down today and that will cascade...
March 02, 2007
Two Socal financial institutions are under the gun for making subprime residential loans, which are loans to folks with weak...
In these nervous-making times, markets can get extra jittery on a Friday afternoon. Weekends mean two full days to ruminate...
Sometimes nuance can be a very big deal - as in describing what former Fed chief Alan Greenspan said about...
Is this really the end? Boeing has told its top C-17 suppliers that it will stop ordering parts because the...
January's 4.6 percent jobless rate is up from 4.5 percent a month earlier, but it's still very low - lower...
It's turning out to be more than a one-day rout after all. The Dow was down around 100 points with...
All clear now?: The Dow seems to be back to normal this morning (it's down around 15 points in early...
March 01, 2007
The Oracle of Omaha's annual letter to shareholders is remarkable both for its folksy touches (shopping tips for Berkshire Hathaway...
That's the challenge presented to Oracle founder and occasional Malibu resident Larry Ellison. You see $30 million is what Ellison...
Kevin Sharer, who has not seemed very concerned about studies raising safety concerns of Amgen drugs, is suddenly sounding a...
As often happens when bidness news becomes front-page news, there's a lot that gets lost in the translation. This week's...
Settling down: This is shaping up to be a very volatile day on Wall Street. The Dow opened down 200...
Wednesday's semi-recovery seemed way too tentative - and so we have the Dow down around 175 points in the first...
© 2003-2008 • About LA Observed • Contact the editor
Forget plastics, the real action these days is arranging going-out-of-business sales.
More From Mark Lacter:
Without referencing its recent layoff, the Ventura County Star's editor says the suburban LA paper is now "more streamlined and, in many ways, much more efficient."
We stripped the Indians of their ponies, and now we're doing it to ourselves.
When the sun looks like that, there's a big fire somewhere regardless of whether we see or smell smoke.
After 22 years of loyalty, Baylor is unceremoniously shown the door.
Lee Abrams, Tribune Company's chief innovation officer, doesn’t seem too impressed with the Los Angeles Times. That’s the feeling I got when he appeared at the Los Angeles Press Club.
Seven or fifteen minutes from now I can definitively say I didn't hear the sound of sirens.
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