Northrop Division, Wyle Laboratories Are Up for Auction
Two denizens of Southern California’s defense industry have hit the corporate auction block, people briefed on the sales processes say: Northrop Grumman Corp.’s navigation-systems division, based in Woodland Hills, and Wyle Laboratories Inc., a multipurpose test-and-research outfit in El Segundo, the Wall street Journal reports. The Northrop unit could fetch between $800 million and $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said, while Wyle might garner under $400 million. Wyle is majority-owned by private-equity firm Littlejohn & Co. of Greenwich, Conn.
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Exit Plan: Follow Nissan
Linda Johnston shed no tears as she flew away this month from the place that had been home for all 43 years of her life, the Los Angeles Times reports. The administrative assistant for Nissan North America is among 550 headquarters employees who opted to stick with the company as it relocates from its freeway-bound campus in Gardena to the hill country of middle Tennessee, just south of Nashville.
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ICM Changing Channels
With the stroke of a pricey deal, ICM has once again become a top player in the TV world, Variety reports. Officially, ICM acquired Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann last week after top-secret negotiations. But it’s the BWCS team that’s now calling the shots on the TV side at the re-energized tenpercentery, with Chris Silbermann and Ted Chervin in charge as co-heads of worldwide TV (Silbermann is also ICM’s co-president). That was made even more clear Friday, when nine more ICM agents were pinkslipped in the aftermath of the merger.
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Tom Cruise’s Studio Pact Is in Question
For many years, Tom Cruise has enjoyed the richest production deal of any A-list star in Hollywood, the Los Angeles Times reports. But in the latest sign of the industry’s increasing obsession with fiscal responsibility, that era may be coming to an end. Paramount Pictures, where Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, have been based since 1992, currently has a commitment to pay the pair as much as $10 million-plus a year to cover overhead, project development and other costs at their movie company, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement.
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McDonald’s, Mattel Dispute Allegations About Chinese Plant
McDonald’s Corp. and Mattel Inc. said they have been investigating an outbreak of violence last week at a Chinese factory that supplies them with toys but haven’t found evidence that the incident was a result of poor treatment of workers, the Wall Street Journal reports. The investigation into the factory comes after a report by China Labor Watch, a New York-based activist group, said more than 1,000 of the plant’s workers had rioted to protest poor wages and working conditions. The factory, owned by Merton Co., an unlisted Hong Kong firm, makes toys and promotional items that are sold by McDonald’s and Mattel as well as other foreign companies, including Walt Disney Co.
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Del Amo Fashion Center Project Sets a Date to Open
The towering glass facade of the movie house has been installed. So have walkways peppered with palm trees, native succulents and a cascading fountain. And a pair of giant horse statues are already standing guard outside P.F. Chang’s. But the new open-air promenade taking shape at Torrance’s Del Amo Fashion Center has an even more significant development to promote these days — an official grand opening date, the Daily Breeze reports.
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