43.Panavision/5 inches/LK1st/mark2nd

No. 43

Ron Perelman Buys Panavision

Ronald Perelman, the billionaire owner of the Revlon line of cosmetics, acquired a majority stake in Panavision Inc., the Woodland Hills-based maker of movie cameras and other accessories.

The $600 million deal, completed in June, gives Perelman a 72 percent stake in Panavision through a holding company. Perelman, who is worth an estimated $6.5 billion, later announced he would become the new chairman of the company at year’s end.

Panavision dominates the movie camera business, building about 80 cameras a year, which it then rents to studios here and in foreign markets. But the company has experienced difficulties of late. For the third quarter ended Sept. 30, Panavision reported a loss of $700,000, compared with net income of $7.6 million in the like period in 1997. The poor performance was blamed on a decline in big-budget movie productions, which usually require the rental of large equipment packages and tend to have lengthier production schedules than smaller-budget films.

R.W. Greene