MANDALAY REJECTS MGM MIRAGE: Mandalay Resort Group rejected MGM Mirage's $4.85-billion cash buyout offer that would have created the largest casino company in the world, saying Friday that the $68 per share bid was insufficient. MGM surprised the market by going public with the offer June 4 amid friendly but unsolicited talks with Mandalay. The blockbuster combination would have given MGM Mirage control of 10 properties on the famous Las Vegas Strip, owning about half the 73,000 hotel rooms of the world's premier gambling market.
AIRLINES CUT FUEL CONSUMPTION: American, United and Southwest airlines are cutting flight speeds, shortening routes and modifying planes to squeeze savings from fuel budgets that have climbed $3-billion and may lead to a fourth year of losses. American will cut almost $11-million by reducing reserve fuel on trans-Atlantic flights, the company said. United cut speeds over Memorial Day about 3 percent at its Ted unit to test the effect on fuel use. Southwest said it will save as much as $10-million by installing curved wing tips on Boeing Co. 737-700s.
"CHURCH PACKS' OF PASSION: Mainstream retailer Sam's Club began offering 50-copy "church packs" of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ this week. Advance sales for the film's release Aug. 31 on DVD and video cassette already have exceeded expectations for the retailer, the warehouse club division of Wal-Mart Stores. Sam's is selling 50 DVDs in a pack for $898, a rate of $17.96 apiece, and 50 video cassettes for $795, a rate of $15.90 apiece. "Focusing on small business is our mission, and that includes churches and religious segments," company spokeswoman Jolanda Stewart said.
STEWART SELLS OMNIMEDIA SHARES: Martha Stewart, the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., has sold 75,000 shares and plans to sell an additional 425,000 shares to pay for expenses tied to her conviction for obstructing justice. Stewart, 62, is selling shares to pay "personal expenses arising from the legal situation she has been embroiled in for two years," said spokeswoman Brooke Morganstein. The sales represent less than 2 percent of her ownership position in the company, she said. The transactions are worth $4.67-million based on Thursday's closing price of $9.33 a share.
MIDWAY SHAREHOLDER SUES REDSTONE: Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone, who controls 72 percent of "Mortal Kombat" video game maker Midway Games Inc., was sued by a stockholder who asked a judge to stop efforts to take Midway private. In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court, Midway shareholder Murray Zucker contends that Redstone and company directors are duty bound to get the best price yet are "not soliciting other suitors for the company."
SEEKING NEW FOCUS ON POVERTY: Seeking to shift the international agenda from terrorism to poverty, delegations from 120 nations are converging on Brazil for talks aimed at giving developing countries a stronger role in the global economy. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which promotes trade to help poor countries, opens its forum Sunday amid a clamor from developing countries for trade liberalization to relieve Third World misery. "Unfair trade rules keep millions of people in poverty, and we know that poverty and inequality exacerbate global insecurity and terrorism," said Katia Maia of the relief agency Oxfam International.
FED SURVEYING SMALL BUSINESS: Chairman Alan Greenspan wants small-business owners to take part in a Federal Reserve survey aimed at increasing policymakers' understanding of how economic and regulatory changes affect their access to credit. The survey is being conducted for the Fed by NORC, a social science research organization at the University of Chicago. Findings will be published in 2006.
