Divestment

Unocal Corp. said Tuesday that it is negotiating to sell its California oil and natural gas assets, a divestment that would sever 103-year-old ties to oil fields that helped make it one of the world's largest oil companies. Los Angeles-based Unocal said three outside companies have made offers for the California exploration and production assets, which include 69 oil and gas fields. Unocal said it is considering selling the assets in order to concentrate on larger overseas opportunities.

State insurance regulators and trade groups have settled a pair of lawsuits stemming from efforts to pressure insurers to stop investing in corporations engaged in energy, nuclear or defense-related work in Iran. California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones announced the settlement late Friday. At issue was a controversial 2009 initiative by Jones' predecessor, Steve Poizner, that threatened to penalize insurance companies and publicize their investments in companies that indirectly benefit the government of Iran.

Weber Aircraft Inc., a maker of seats, galleys and lavatories for aircraft, has been sold by its British owner for $85 million in cash. The buyer is Air Cruisers Co. of Belmar, N.J., which makes aircraft escape chutes, life vests and inflatable boats and is part of Groupe Zodiac, a French manufacturer. Makers of airplane parts have been hurt by the recession because airlines are buying fewer planes.

Former Internet giant AOL Inc. posted a $1.06-billion loss Wednesday resulting largely from an accounting charge triggered by its recent sale of social networking company Bebo Inc. The company, which was spun off by Time Warner Inc. last year, is struggling to remake itself as an information and media hub as its decade-old dial-up business continues to erode. Its ad revenue was down 27% from the same quarter last year. But the decline might have stemmed from a set of decisions that Wall Street likes, said Clayton F. Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co. AOL has been selling off weaker advertising units as it steps up its efforts in higher-margin display advertising.

In a deal combining the smell of greasepaint and the color of money, consumer products giant Procter & Gamble agreed to spend $1.14 billion on Revlon's historic Max Factor & Co. as well as Revlon's German cosmetics subsidiary, the two companies announced Wednesday.

Hadson Corp., an Oklahoma City-based energy firm, said Wednesday it has agreed to sell its money-losing Ultrasystems Defense Inc. subsidiary here to Logicon Inc. in Los Angeles for an undisclosed price. J. Michael Adcock, president of Hadson, said the company is selling the unit to get out of the defense business, reduce its debt and focus on its core energy businesses. Ultrasystems Defense employs 280 people at locations in Irvine, El Segundo, Sunnyvale, Sierra Vista, Ariz.

I was very disheartened to see Gov. George Deukmejian and the University of California Regents cave in to the shameless dishonesty of the divestment movement. By avoiding all legitimate debate and chanting "anyone who opposes sanctions supports apartheid" divestment advocates (and their media allies) have created such political pressure that even intelligent and ethical men are forced for political survival into behavior that is stupid, immoral, and un-American. Stupid? The South African economy is based on agriculture and minerals.

Laser manufacturer Trimedyne Inc. said Monday that it has completed the sale of its 90% owned subsidiary Poly-Optical Products Inc. for cash to privately held Remote Source Lighting International Inc., in Raleigh, N.C. Trimedyne expects to record a gain of about $700,000 in the current quarter as a result of the sale. Poly-Optical manufactures plastic fiber-optic devices in the automotive, industrial and medical fields.

Berkeley, which helped start a national movement to keep investments out of South Africa, wants to use the same tactic against gun companies. The City Council voted Tuesday night to ban municipal money from going to companies that make firearms, although Berkeley doesn't in fact have any money invested in gun manufacturers.

Leaders of a tobacco divestiture campaign predicted that the movement to dump tobacco stocks will gain momentum in 1997 because legal and regulatory pressures are making them risky investments. "Tobacco is horrific on moral grounds, and there is no longer a compelling case to be made for it on strictly economic grounds," Steve Schueth, president of the Social Investment Forum, said in a teleconference. Meanwhile, Steven Goldstone, chairman and CEO of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp.

By a 3-2 vote the board moves to suspend county-funded travel to the state, possibly terminate contracts with Arizona-based companies, and divest the county pension fund of Arizona state and municipal bonds. Residents attending the meeting spoke out on both sides of the issue. After heated debate, Los Angeles County supervisors voted 3 to 2 Tuesday to boycott Arizona in response to the passage of its controversial illegal immigration law, a decision that came the same day the Los Angeles Unified School District condemned the law. "This law simply goes too far," said Supervisor Gloria Molina, the primary sponsor of the county boycott.

So, a Cuban walks into his neighborhood barbershop for a trim and a shave on a Havana afternoon. In all likelihood, haircutter and customer argue about baseball. Maybe they discuss Companero Companero Fidel's latest column in Granma. When they finish, the newly coiffed client pays for the services in Cuban pesos; about 15% goes to the state for taxes, and the owner legally pockets the rest. For the record: A previous version of this editorial incorrectly said that since the 1959 revolution, Cuba had "privatized" most of its economy.

More than two years after California required the sale of investments in foreign companies operating in Iran's defense and energy industries, the state's biggest public pension fund still hasn't sold any of its $900 million in holdings in those firms. On Wednesday, legislators heard criticism from Jewish groups and an Iranian torture victim contending that the California Public Employees' Retirement System and to a lesser extent the State Teachers' Retirement System are flouting a 2007 law designed to bring pressure on the Islamic Republic.

News Corp. has concluded that the best strategy to succeed in providing online movie news and information is to get out of it. The media conglomerate led by Rupert Murdoch on Monday sold Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review aggregation website, to fast-growing user-generated review site Flixster Inc. News Corp. acquired Rotten Tomatoes as part of IGN Entertainment, which it bought in 2005 for $650 million. Under the terms of the all-stock deal, News Corp. will get a minority equity stake in 4-year-old Flixster and a nonvoting seat on its board.

A plan to fill last summer's $20-billion budget hole in part by selling a chunk of the state-run workers' compensation company is now so bollixed up in court that it's hampering Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's effort to devise new ways for reducing a similar deficit this winter. Last summer, the governor convinced state lawmakers that he could raise $1 billion by getting investors to buy some of the business of the century-old State Compensation Insurance Fund. That idea was one of a handful of creative solutions and accounting maneuvers concocted to balance the $90-billion, recession-wracked spending plan, at least on paper.

Ford Motor Co., seeking to unload its unprofitable Volvo unit, will announce todaythat talks with Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. have progressed to the point where a sale is likely, according to a person familiar with the matter. Ford, which named China's Geely its "preferred bidder" for Volvo on Oct. 28, also will lay out an estimated timeline for completing the sale, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the details aren't yet public. John Gardiner, a Ford of Europe spokesman, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Whittaker Corp. plans to divest all or part of its defense electronics unit in the coming months and said it retained an investment advisor to assist in exploring strategic options to cut debt. The Simi Valley-based company said its debt is currently $146 million. Whittaker had a loss of $17.1 million, or $1.70 a share, on sales of $221.9 million for the year ended Oct. 31.

Sumner Redstone's family-owned movie theater circuit, National Amusements Inc., has closed a deal to unload 29 of the 35 non-core cinema assets it is selling to Texas-based Rave Cinemas. Financial terms weren't disclosed. A transaction for the remaining six -- which includes the Bridge Cinema de Lux multiplex in Los Angeles -- is expected to be finalized in the next couple of weeks. Redstone will use the proceeds of the sale to help pay off National Amusements' outstanding debt.

After months of speculation about their future, entertainment-industry newspaper the Hollywood Reporter, music-industry magazine Billboard and five other publications owned by Nielsen Business Media have been sold. Their new owner is a consortium of investors led by James Finkelstein, whose News Communications Inc. controls the Washington political newspaper the Hill and the Who's Who directories. Finkelstein himself also owns Thompson Publishing Group Inc., which puts out niche publications about government regulations.