Will Pixar Be Pulled Into Stock Storm?
John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, the forces behind the animation phenom, suddenly find themselves caught up in the so-called options-backdating imbroglio after a report uncovered that they once received stock options with suspicious dates, Variety reports. Options backdating is a practice in which a company manipulates dates on stock options so execs can receive artificially high profits from a stock sale — and then doesn’t reveal the practice to Wall Street. It is not always illegal, but frequently can be.
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Firms to Challenge Disney in Family Movies
Fox Filmed Entertainment struck a deal Tuesday with billionaire Philip Anschutz’s movie company to take aim at the biggest name in family entertainment: Walt Disney Co., the Los Angeles Times reports News Corp., Fox’s parent, hopes to capitalize on the lucrative family film business and plug a hole in its own lineup by teaming with Walden Media, the producer of the 2005 blockbuster “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”
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Hits Send Studio Into Stratosphere
“Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby” did a lot more than give star Will Ferrell the biggest opening weekend of his career, the Los Angels Daily News reports. This NASCAR parody has propelled Sony Pictures Entertainment to its fifth straight year of reaching $1 billion in domestic grosses. This is extremely rarified air. Warner Bros., which has struggled this summer, is the only other studio to have accomplished the $1 billion milestone in five consecutive years. Sony is also poised to surpass Disney this week to take over as the No. 1 studio in terms of market share for 2006, a feat accomplished largely by releasing a steady stream of midlevel hits throughout the first seven months of the year.
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Sempra Ordered to Turn Over Tapes
Sempra Energy and more than a dozen other energy companies must provide hundreds of hours of recorded conversations with their natural gas traders to attorneys who are hoping to prove that they illegally inflated prices for California gas customers, a judge ruled Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times reports. The ruling, which came after a daylong hearing, resolves one of many disputes that have emerged over the traders’ tapes in the case. The lawsuit is among a handful of outstanding cases that allege wrongdoing by energy companies during California’s 2000-01 energy crisis.
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Pumped Early For Initiative
The campaigns supporting and opposing Proposition 87 have opened the fall initiative advertising season with dueling 30-second spots seeking to distinguish the oil tax proposal from the 12 other measures on the November ballot, the Sacramento Bee reports. While the gubernatorial candidates have been slugging it out in television spots for weeks, most initiative campaigns are expected to hold their fire until later in the election season. But with the oil companies pumping nearly $30 million into the opposition’s campaign, “Yes on 87” spokeswoman Beth Willon said supporters decided to defy “conventional wisdom” by hitting the airwaves.
Insurance Rate Cuts? Here’s The Lowdown
The automobile insurance industry and California Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi have entered a significant legal battle over how to be fair to you, the Los Angeles Times reports. At issue is how to set insurance rates in a reasonable and nondiscriminatory way, a matter so technically complex that it defies imagination, but not politics. In California, an almost incomprehensible mix of factors is used to set rates, which are supposed to reflect an insurer’s risk.
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L.B. May Lose Tax Incentive
Millions of dollars and countless jobs are at stake if a handful of enterprise zones across the Golden State head into the sunset. That’s according to those working to extend the lifespan of the zones, which provide tax incentives to employers. A zone in Long Beach is due to expire next year, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reports. Long Beach Area Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Randy Gordon appeared Tuesday in Sacramento before the Senate Housing and Transportation Committee to discuss Assembly Bill 485.
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L.A. Councilmen Seek to Freeze Condo Conversions in Their Districts
Confronted by a heated housing market and several high-profile mass evictions, some Los Angeles City Council members have begun pressing for a freeze on converting apartment buildings into pricey condominiums, the Los Angeles Times reports. Last week Councilman Alex Padilla called for a moratorium in his district in the northeast San Fernando Valley. On Tuesday, Councilman Bill Rosendahl asked for one in his Westside district, which has led the city in conversions over the last five years.
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