Kirk Kerkorian

Reaching for the first time into the upper ranks of Hollywood's legal establishment, the federal grand jury investigating private eye Anthony Pellicano indicted prominent Los Angeles entertainment attorney Terry N. Christensen on Wednesday for allegedly having the ex-wife of billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian wiretapped.

In an 11th-hour move, two companies controlled by Rupert Murdoch have bid $1.8 billion for MGM/UA Communications Co., which was slated to merge in two weeks with Qintex, an Australian company. If Murdoch's slightly higher bid succeeds, he would control two major Hollywood studios that together captured nearly 22% of the box office in 1988. MGM/UA said that its directors will meet today to consider the offer, made jointly by News Corp. Ltd. and Fox Inc.

Since first buying a stake in what was then known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. more than 20 years ago, investor Kirk Kerkorian has taken the studio through a series of financial transactions so bewildering that even he must occasionally be hard-pressed to sort them out. There have been buyouts, buy-ins, split-ups, restructurings, expansions, contractions and a never-ending string of executive changes.

Just two months ago, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Chairman Frank Mancuso, Kirk Kerkorian and Seven Network's Kerry Stokes were popping open champagne during a ceremony marking the $1.3-billion, management-led buyout of the venerable Hollywood studio backed by the reclusive Las Vegas billionaire and Australian broadcaster. Now, with reality setting in, the fizz may be fizzling.

Reclusive financier Kirk Kerkorian plans to return to the airline business, it was learned Wednesday. In documents filed earlier this week with the Department of Transportation, a group financed by Kerkorian said it intends to begin an all-first-class carrier named MGM Grand Air. The airline, which will have a total of $20 million invested, plans to begin service with two airliners April 20, initially between Los Angeles and Newark, N.J.

A federal bankruptcy judge Thursday approved the sale of Pan American World Airways' London routes to United Airlines, upstaging a last-minute entrance on the scene by Los Angeles financier Kirk Kerkorian. After a seven-hour hearing that did not end until after 9 p.m. EST, Judge Cornelius Blackshear took less than a minute to make his decision. He said he made it in the interest of Pan Am's short-term survival.

The war of words escalated Friday in the bitter child-support battle between Kirk and Lisa Kerkorian, with each accusing the other of engaging in misleading, bare-knuckled legal tactics to the detriment of the 3-year-old girl at the center of the dispute. MGM mogul Kirk Kerkorian, 84, said in court papers filed Thursday that former tennis pro Lisa Kerkorian, 36, "deceived" him into believing he was the child's biological father until a DNA test in November 2000 "scientifically excluded" him.

Baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth, who made millions in the travel business before becoming the czar of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, is negotiating to buy strikebound Eastern Airlines, with financial backing from entertainment mogul Kirk Kerkorian, several knowledgeable sources said Monday night. The deal, the sources said, is to be discussed at a board meeting of Texas Air Corp., Eastern's parent company, scheduled to be held Wednesday in Houston.

The former wife of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian asked a Superior Court judge Wednesday to dismiss Kerkorian's attorney from her child support case because he has been indicted in the ongoing federal probe of private investigator Anthony Pellicano. In court papers, Lisa Bonder Kerkorian also asked for a $25,000-a-month increase in the current $50,000 monthly child support payments for the couple's young daughter, Kira. The request comes the day after Kerkorian's lawyer, Terry N.

Kirk Kerkorian, majority shareholder of MGM/UA Entertainment Co. and MGM Grand Hotels Inc., said Tuesday that he has picked Los Angeles lawyer Stephen D. Silbert to head a new holding company in which the financier plans to consolidate all of his business interests. The announcement came at a time when the publicly traded MGM movie and gambling concerns say they have been approached by potential buyers for all or part of their assets.

Kirk Kerkorian wasn't kidding when he said he was putting the brakes on his latest foray into the auto industry. A spokeswoman for Tracinda Corp., the billionaire's Beverly Hills-based investment company, confirmed Monday that it had dumped its remaining stock holdings in struggling Ford Motor Co. She declined to provide details of the stock sales. Kerkorian owned 107.1 million Ford shares, or 4.

In an apparent vote of no confidence, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian has sold part of his 6.49% stake in Ford Motor Co. and said Tuesday that he would try to unload all of his holdings in the company. The news is the latest sign of troubles at Ford, which saw two board members depart last week, lost its chief financial officer the week before that and posted $8.6 billion in red ink for the first two quarters of the year. Through September, Ford's U.S.

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian has raised his stake in Ford Motor Co. to 6.49%, saying his investment company would consider throwing additional money into the struggling automaker's turnaround effort. Tracinda Corp. said Thursday in a regulatory filing that it purchased another 20 million Ford shares, raising its stake to 140.8 million. It previously had disclosed a 5.5% stake.

Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. suggested it may withdraw its $1.4-billion tender offer for 16% of Tesoro Corp. after the refinery owner adopted a stockholder-rights plan that Tracinda said violates a condition of the bid. Shares of Tesoro fell 7.6% on Monday. The rights plan "significantly limits opportunities to enhance stockholder value," Tracinda said in a statement. Tracinda also said it was "weighing its alternatives."

Tesoro Corp. said its board would review an unsolicited $1.4-billion offer by billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian to buy an additional 16% stake in the oil refiner. The Tesoro board will review the offer over the next 10 days, the company said. Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp., which already owns 4% of the company, offered Friday to buy an additional 21.9 million shares for $64 a piece, 12% more the stock's closing price Thursday.

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian wasn't misled about the $36-billion deal that created automaker DaimlerChrysler in 1998, an appeals court ruled. The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld a lower court's 2005 finding that Daimler-Benz didn't disguise the Chrysler takeover as a "merger of equals." Kerkorian, once Chrysler's largest shareholder, sought as much as $3 billion in a lawsuit over the deal.

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, who years ago made headlines when he agreed to accept joint legal custody of a little girl who was not his daughter, is paving the way for her to meet and bond with her biological father, Hollywood producer Steve Bing. It's the latest turn in a case that has played out for tabloid readers as well as Wall Street watchers: It started in 2002, when Kerkorian's ex-wife, Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, 42, sued for $320,000 a month in child support for her daughter, Kira.

Never mind. Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian has abandoned his effort to buy two of MGM Mirage's premier Las Vegas developments, the Bellagio casino-resort and the $7-billion CityCenter development. The announcement Wednesday by Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp.

Does Kirk Kerkorian have a hot hand? Wall Street thinks so. Investors went "all in" on shares of MGM Mirage on Tuesday, the day after Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. disclosed that he wanted to buy two of the hotel and gaming company's prime Las Vegas assets. MGM Mirage's stock zoomed more than 27% despite few specifics from the billionaire investor concerning his plans. Other gaming stocks rallied as investors bet that Kerkorian was on to something.

Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian already owns a controlling 56% stake of MGM Mirage, one of the world's largest hotel and gaming companies. Which is why investors found the enigmatic Los Angeles investor's latest move all the more puzzling: He wants to carve out for himself two of the company's prized landmarks on the Las Vegas Strip. Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp.