Joint Ventures

Universal Music Group Inc., the largest music company in the world, is forming a joint venture to manage musicians with Live Nation Entertainment Inc., the world's biggest ticketing, concerts promotions and artist management firm. The deal puts Universal's small cluster of four management companies under Live Nation's Front Line Management Group, whose 90 executives manage 250 artists, including the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney and Christina Aguilera. Under the agreement, Front Line will oversee the joint venture.

It's time for South Korea to face facts: The Kaesong experiment has failed. The ideologically motivated joint business venture with North Korea known as the Kaesong industrial complex is not economically viable, nor has it achieved any of its political objectives. To protest recent sanctions against it, the North pulled its workers out this month and locked out workers from the South. Seoul tried to engage North Korea to resolve the dispute, coupled with an uncharacteristic deadline and a warning of "grave consequences.

A Los Angeles company that makes equipment for dams and other electrical power-generating facilities has entered into a joint venture with two Soviet companies to market large Soviet-built generators and turbines in the United States. Magnetek Inc. is the No. 1 builder of medium-power transformers in the United States, but does not manufacture the industry's biggest power devices--generators and turbines.

Imagine a world where Buick outsells Chevrolet. It's called China. Buick is the top seller for General Motors' Shanghai GM venture. November sales in China for the Buick brand reached 70,172 vehicles, a 17% gain from the same month a year earlier. The Regal sold 9,204 units, almost 10 times the volume it sold in the U.S. last month. Chevrolet sold 63,012 vehicles in China last month, a 15% gain over the same period a year earlier. GM is the largest foreign automaker in China.

Passengers on Swissair's long-haul jets later this year will get a chance to do some casino-style gambling during their flights. Las Vegas-based Interactive Flight Technologies has completed a contract with Swissair for the installation of its In-Flight Entertainment Network on all of the airline's long-haul jets. The first plane is scheduled to be equipped with the system, which will cost between $70 million and $80 million, in October and to be in flight by November.

International Business Machines and Apple Computer on Wednesday signed their wide-ranging cooperation agreement, a landmark accord that includes the establishment of two joint venture companies and extensive sharing of technologies. The two computer firms, once bitter rivals, stunned the industry when they announced the outlines of the agreement in July.

L.L. Knickerbocker Co. said it has formed a 50-50 joint venture with Arkenol Holdings L.L.C. to use Arkenol's technology to make chemicals, biomass solids and liquid fuels to sell in some Asian markets. L.L. Knickerbocker said the joint venture will acquire licenses for Arkenol's technology to convert plant materials into ethanol and other chemicals. The joint venture, which is called Arkenol Asia, will sell the chemicals in Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Laos and India.

Microsoft Corp. said it is working with No. 3 U.S. long-distance phone company Sprint Corp. to combine phone and data services, and wants to set standards for unified messaging that combines voicemail, e-mail and pages in one in-box. Microsoft and Sprint plan this summer to begin selling systems that manage phone services such as local, wireless and Internet access and also include voicemail and e-mail on a single computer.

Fluor Corp. said Thursday that its Fluor Daniel unit has formed a joint venture with Boston-based engineering services firm Stone & Webster to pursue petrochemical industry construction project jobs. The joint venture, to be headquartered in Houston, will concentrate on the ethylene industry. Ethylene is a major petrochemical feedstock used to manufacture a variety of derivatives, including plastics and solvents.

Broadcom Corp. today will announce a multiyear joint venture with a Rohnert Park, Calif., company to transform copper telephone wires into a powerful weapon that telephone companies can wield against cable television operators. The Irvine chip maker and Next Level Communications Inc., which have worked together for the last several years, plan to co-develop chips for set-top boxes that work with very high-speed digital subscriber line, or VDSL, technology.

Creative Artists Agency and one of the top talent agencies in India, Kwan Entertainment & Marketing Solutions, have formed a joint venture to represent Bollywood talent, in a move that underscores the importance of the growing Asian market to the entertainment industry. The newly formed CAA Kwan will pursue opportunities for talent in film, television, music, commercial endorsements, sports consulting and other businesses. The company will be based in Mumbai, with offices in Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Sotheby's will expand its presence in China with a new, 10-year joint venture that will see the auction house giant team up with a state-owned Chinese art company. The deal will create a new entity called Sotheby's (Beijing) Auction Co., Ltd.  Sotheby's said the new company would be the first international fine-art auction house in China. The agreement is subject to approval from the Chinese government. Under the new deal, Sotheby's said it would focus on auctions and exhibitions.

A quarter century ago, Fox figured there was room for more than just three big TV networks. It created Fox Broadcasting, which would redefine television with shows such as "Married ... with Children,""The Simpsons,""24" and"American Idol. " Now, Fox is hoping to stage an encore. Rupert Murdoch's company on Monday unveiled MundoFox, a new Spanish-language broadcast network. A joint venture with Colombian powerhouse RCN Television Group, the network will challenge the Spanish-language media dominance of entrenched rivals Univision Communications and Telemundo.

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. Toymaker Jakks Pacific is joining forces with Los Angeles tech firm Nantworks to develop and sell a new line of toys tied to smart devices. The toy collection will incorporate a free app designed by Nantworks that uses image-recognition technology to recognize objects and trigger photos, animations and other data to pop up on a smartphone or tablet computer. For example, a smartphone with the app open can be pointed to a costume tiara -   and on the phone's screen, hair could be programmed to digitally grow from the crown, said Stephen Berman, Jakks' chief executive.

In the latest sign of China's rising importance in the global aviation industry, Cessna Aircraft Co. said it would develop a plan to build business jets with the state-owned Aviation Industry Corp. of China. The announcement paves the way for Cessna of Wichita, Kan., to become the first U.S. aircraft maker to manufacture business jets in China, the fastest-growing market for the multimillion-dollar planes. "We believe China represents a significant opportunity for growth," said Scott Donnelly, chief executive of Cessna's parent company, U.S. conglomerate Textron Inc., at a signing ceremony Friday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Looks like Oprah Winfrey has had one of her trademark "aha!" moments. Winfrey and Discovery Communications Inc., partners in the Oprah Winfrey Network, announced cutbacks and an executive restructuring at the struggling cable channel. The moves follow OWN's decision Friday to cancel its high-profile Rosie O'Donnell talk show and will result in 30 staffers being let go and executives from Discovery Communications being brought in to oversee key operations. The changes come as OWN continues to struggle to find its voice.

Hygenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Iowa City-based Biocontrol Inc., both fledgling biomedical firms, plan to form a joint venture to develop long-lasting antiseptics for medical and other uses. The companies intend to come up with products that will use Biocontrol's drug-delivery system to prolong the life of antiseptics that Hygenics makes. The companies hope to raise $10 million to $20 million from private investors to launch the venture in February.

Ticketmaster Group Inc. said it has purchased Time Warner Inc.'s one-third interest in their Ticketmaster-Southeast joint venture for $9.5 million in cash, giving Ticketmaster a two-thirds stake in the venture. The remaining one-third interest is owned by Seagram Co.'s MCA unit. Los Angeles-based Ticketmaster also reported profit of almost $2 million, or 8 cents a share, in the second quarter ended July 31, contrasted with a loss of $439 million, or 3 cents, in the year-ago period.

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.announced plans to build a studio in Shanghai in what the Glendale company billed as a landmark agreement with two state-owned Chinese media companies. The creator of the "Shrek" movies said Friday that it was forming Oriental DreamWorks, a joint venture with China Media Capital and Shanghai Media Group, in concert with Shanghai Alliance Investment - an investment arm of the Shanghai municipal government - to establish a family entertainment company in China.

A Los Angeles film company that invested in a $500-million fund to co-finance Sony Pictures movies filed a lawsuit alleging that the fund's manager and a later investor cheated it out of at least $44 million. Aramid Entertainment Fund alleged in a lawsuit Wednesday that the Sony fund, which co-financed 18 movies since 2008, was shut down late last year in a manner that benefited both fund manager Relativity Media in West Hollywood and the investor, New York money management firm Fortress Investment Group, at Aramid's expense.