OIL SHAKEUP: L.A. billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian has gained tighter control over Delta Petroleum Corp. The chief executive of the struggling oil-and-gas producer stepped down and a Kerkorian ally was installed as chairman. Denver-based Delta Petroleum is 34 percent-owned by Kerkorian’s Tracinda Corp. investment firm, and Kerkorian has been taking an increasingly activist role in the company.
JOBLESS RATE: L.A. County’s unemployment rate fell slightly in April to 11 percent from 11.3 percent in March, according to state figures. California’s Employment Development Department said 37,000 more county residents reported they had jobs in April, while 24,000 fewer residents were on unemployment rolls. But the county has lost 168,000 payroll jobs over the past 12 months, with the losses heaviest in manufacturing, construction and retail.
OFFICE SOLD: The investment company of former billionaire Louis Gonda has sold an office complex in the Miracle Mile area for $44 million. Lexington Commercial Holdings sold the office complex at 6310 and 6330 San Vicente Blvd. to a joint venture of PRP Real Estate Advisors and Cambra Realty of Beverly Hills. The deal breaks down to about $220 per square foot. The sale will provide a cash infusion for Gonda, who had much of his wealth tied up in American International Group, the giant New York insurance company that saw its stock collapse last year.
APPEAL FILED: MGA Entertainment Inc. filed an emergency appeal asking the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to halt the transfer of its Bratz fashion doll line to El Segundo’s Mattel Inc. U.S. District Court Stephen Larson had affirmed his order for Van Nuys-based MGA to stop selling the dolls at the end of the 2009 holiday season, but changed the status of Beverly Hills attorney Patrick Fraioli from temporary receiver to monitor. While that means MGA executives control the company, Fraioli still gets a say over certain financial transactions.
STAKE UNLOADED: Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., the Vancouver, Canada, independent film studio and entertainment distributor that has major operations in Santa Monica, is selling a 49 percent stake in its recently acquired TV Guide channel to a group comprised of One Equity Partners and media entrepreneur Allen Shapiro for $125 million. The investment will help fund Lions Gate’s plan to turn TV Guide into an entertainment cable network. One Equity Partners, which is JPMorgan Chase’s private equity branch, and Shapiro, who once ran Dick Clark Productions, had attempted to buy TV Guide from Macrovision Solutions before it was sold to Lions Gate in March.
NAME CHANGE: Santa Monica media venture capital firm Velocity Interactive Group has changed its name to Fuse Capital and announced it will become the manager of a new fund financed by big-box retailer Best Buy. Best Buy, which bought music streaming service Napster in the fall, is the sole limited partner in the venture. It hopes to take advantage of current depressed values for digital media and emerging technology businesses. The size of the fund was not disclosed.
CHANNEL REBRANDING: Walt Disney Co. is renaming Jetix television channels acquired in five Central and Eastern European countries as the Disney Channel. The Burbank entertainment giant already has begun adding its shows, including the “Hannah Montana” series, to the Jetix schedule. The new Disney channels will be localized, with programs dubbed in the counties’ native languages. The name change will take place in Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria later this year, with no changes planned for Jetix channels in other European markets for now.
PIPELINE HELP: Amgen Inc. is paying partner Cytokinetics Inc. $50 million for rights to its heart-drug program, which includes a promising experimental drug. The Thousand Oaks biotech giant has been collaborating with the smaller South San Francisco drug developer since 2006. Cytokinetics’ heart drug, which is in midstage clinical trials, is the first in a new group of medicines that can increase the duration of each contraction of the heart muscle without also increasing a person’s heart rate. Amgen earlier paid the company about $75 million to establish the partnership.
SETTLEMENT REACHED: Health Net Inc. has reached an agreement to pay at least $1.95 million to California hospitals that were not paid when patients’ individual insurance policies were rescinded. The class-action case, which was organized by the California Hospital Association and involved about 200 hospitals, is related to the Woodland Hills health insurer’s decisions to revoke or rescind policies between February 2004 and October 2007, which state regulators and critics have called overly aggressive. Health Net admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.
BANKING PROPOSAL: Los Angeles City Council member Richard Alarc & #243;n has introduced a motion to create banking development districts across the city. The initiative, modeled after a similar program in New York, would encourage the construction of bank branches by providing incentives such as property tax breaks and expedited land-use approval. The proposal is a response to the proliferation of check-cashing outlets and payday lenders, which collectively outnumber bank and credit union branches roughly 2-to-1, especially in low-income neighborhoods.
TV SUIT: DirecTV Group Inc. has been sued by a New Jersey consumer who claims the El Segundo satellite TV provider’s early cancellation fees are “unlawfully high and inadequately disclosed.” The complaint claims that DirecTV, which began in March 2006 to lease equipment to consumers, has charged up to $470 for cutting service or failing to return equipment, according to filings in federal court in Newark, N.J.
