BUSINESS BRIEFS
Disney profits down, but above expectations
Advertiser Staff and News Services
LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Co. reported lower fiscal first-quarter profit yesterday due partly to prior-year gains from the media conglomerate's sale of its interest in US Weekly magazine and the E! Entertainment channel.
Still, the company beat Wall Street expectations.
For the quarter ended Dec. 29, Burbank-based Disney reported net income of $1.25 billion, or 63 cents per share, compared with $1.70 billion, or 79 cents per share, in the prior-year period.
Excluding one-time items, earnings grew 29 percent to 63 cents per share from 49 cents in the prior-year period.
BHP UPS OFFER FOR RIO TINTO
SYDNEY, Australia — BHP Billiton formalized its unwelcome takeover bid for Rio Tinto today and upped the stakes with an all-share offer worth $173.6 billion that would create a global mining monolith.
Rio Tinto, which rejected an initial approach from BHP Billiton last year as too low, said it would consider the new offer and urged its shareholders not to act hastily.
BHP Billiton is offering 3.4 of its shares for every one Rio Tinto share, an increase from the initial informal proposal of three-for-one, the Melbourne-based company said. The offer applies to both companies in the Rio Tinto Group, the Australian-listed company Rio Tinto Ltd. and British-listed Rio Tinto PLC.
CHEVROLET WILL UNVEIL TRAVERSE
CHICAGO — Chevrolet will introduce a model at the Chicago Auto Show today that promises to become the best-selling member of General Motors Corp.'s acclaimed family of crossovers.
The Chevrolet Traverse seats seven or eight people and shares its major mechanical systems with the Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook. While those three models come from a plant in Lansing, Mich., GM will use its entire Spring Hill, Tenn., assembly plant to build the Traverse.
GM sold a total of 136,799 Acadias, Enclaves and Outlooks last year and should sell more in 2008, the models' first full year of production.
COKE BUYS STAKE IN HONEST TEA
BETHESDA, Md. — Honest Tea, the Bethesda, Md., organic beverage firm launched 10 years ago in its co-founder's kitchen with five borrowed thermoses, has sold a 40 percent stake to Coca-Cola in a move designed to extend its not-too-sweet drinks to more mainstream palates.
Coke's investment of $43 million values the company at more than $100 million, according to someone familiar with the transaction who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal's terms were not publicly disclosed.
The agreement gives Coke, which last year bought the maker of Vitamin Water for $4.1 billion, a relatively inexpensive way to continue diversifying its beverage offerings as healthy, noncarbonated drinks surge in popularity.
MILITARY ROCKET MAY FERRY CARGO
LOS ANGELES — An aerospace company is negotiating to use a military rocket to ferry hardware, crew and cargo to a planned commercial space station, privately-held Bigelow Aerospace said yesterday.
Bigelow plans to build and operate an expandable commercial orbital outpost in late 2011 but needs the use of a reusable launch vehicle.
The deal, if approved, would include six initial launches of an Atlas V rocket, said Mike Gold, Bigelow's corporate counsel.
The rocket is made by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. Lockheed offers commercial Atlas launch services through its subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services.The talks began in December and a deal is expected soon, Lockheed spokesman Charles Manor said.
