Seagram

Liquor will be made quicker here.Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc. unveiled its $24 million state-of-the-art spirits plant here yesterday, showing off fast-moving conveyor belts that take rattling and clinking bottles of Calvert whiskey, Wolfschmidt vodka and hundreds of other liquors to be filled, labeled and boxed.The new, 400-worker bottling and liquor-mixing plant replaces two older plants, one in Dundalk and one on the same site in Relay, that employed nearly 800 workers.Montreal-based Seagram sold the Dundalk plant to Montebello Brands Inc., a small local bottler best known for its introduction of kosher vodka.

Baltimore County Fire Department crews knocked down three of the four walls of the old Seagram's Building in Dundalk after a two-alarm fire Friday. The building was part of the National Distillers Products, commonly known as Seagram's, distillery buildings at 7100 Sollers Point Road. The five-story building that caught fire was vacant and no one was inside at the time the blaze began, according to a statement from Elise Armacost, spokeswoman with the Fire Department. No injuries were reported.

Seagram Co. has agreed to pay $7 billion to buy 80 percent of the movie and entertainment company MCA Inc. from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., people close to the deal said yesterday.Matsushita acquired MCA in 1990, during the heady days of Japanese investment in the United States, but has agreed to cede control after failing to master the vagaries of Hollywood and a disgruntled U.S. management team.The money for the acquisition will come from the sale by Seagram of nearly all its 25 percent stake in DuPont for $8.8 billion in cash.

Richard Joseph Garson, a retired accountant and real estate salesman, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Saturday at his home in Maysville, Ky., where he had moved in 1998. The former Catonsville resident was 85. Born in Cleveland, he earned an accounting degree at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. During World War II, he served on a destroyer in the Atlantic. While in the service, he also studied at Harvard University. He moved to Maryland in 1943 and worked at the Seagram distillery in Relay as an accountant.

After months of acting nonchalant about the growing stake being acquired by Seagram Co., the board of Time Warner Inc. adopted defensive measures yesterday intended to prevent Seagram from buying more than 15 percent of Time Warner's stock.Seagram, a Montreal-based spirits company, has been building a stake since May in Time Warner, a New York-based media and entertainment company.On Wednesday, Seagram said it had increased its holdings to 11.7 percent from 10.4 percent. Seagram has said that it intends to buy as much as 15 percent of the company as an investment.

Calvert brand whiskey, first concocted in Baltimore in 1939, never had anything to do with the noble British family of the same name that founded Maryland.And soon it won't have much to do with Maryland either.Joseph E. Seagram & Son's decision to sell some of its lower-priced liquor lines will probably result in layoffs at the distillery in Relay, the plant's manager, Frank Noppert, said yesterday.But the 460 jobs at the plant, near U.S. 1 and Interstate 95 in southern Baltimore County, will be safe for a while, he said.

Hollywood's most closely watched deal ended up on the cutting-room floor yesterday as negotiations for Michael Ovitz to become head of the entertainment giant MCA Inc. unexpectedly collapsed.The end of the talks scuttled plans by Seagram Co.'s president, Edgar Bronfman Jr., to give Mr. Ovitz, chairman of the Creative Artists Agency, the reins of MCA, which Seagram now controls.Mr. Ovitz, who wields enormous clout in Hollywood as the top deal maker in the movie business, had been seeking about $250 million in compensation and equity from Seagram in return for agreeing to give up his majority stake in the talent agency and run MCA, individuals involved in the negotiations said.

Seagram Co., the Montreal-based conglomerate that operates a liquor bottling plant in Relay, announced yesterday that it will close some warehouses, bottling plants and distilleries throughout its worldwide operations in an effort to boost profits.The company reported a third-quarter loss of $55 million that included a $290 million pretax charge to cover the cost of plant closings and the elimination of jobs.Chris Tofalli, a spokesman for Seagram in New York, said most of the plant closings will be in Europe, but there will be some in the United States.

Seagram Co. continued yesterday to move quickly toward buying control of MCA Inc. amid growing confusion over whether the widely reported $7 billion price tag for 80 percent of the company was overstated by as much as $1.4 billion.Sources close to the deal, expected to be announced as early as tomorrow, said that the reported price leaked out Thursday was too high, and that Seagram would actually be paying only $5.6 billion.On Thursday, sources close to the situation had said that $7 billion was the price being paid for the 80 percent stake, which would put MCA's total value at close to $9 billion.

WHAT COULD Seagram have been thinking? The distiller took on almost half a century of tradition earlier this year when it began airing television advertisements in Corpus Christi, Texas. Its industry had upheld a voluntary ban on TV ads for 48 years.Politicians, predictably, reacted with vigor. President Clinton and others called on Seagram to stop. But just last week, the Canada-based distiller announced its intent to plow ahead with more TV spots.It's expanding its advertising markets, bringing Chivas and Crown Royal whiskey to video screens in Boston and several other areas around the country -- including, possibly, a push at Baltimore.

The U.S. liquor industry decided yesterday to end a decades-long voluntary ban on the advertising of liquor products such as vodka, Scotch whisky, gin and tequila on television and radio.The decision by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, or Discus, the liquor trade association, came six months after Seagram Co., the nation's second-largest seller of distilled spirits, began defying the ban -- in effect since 1936 for radio and 1948 for television -- by running commercials in scattered markets.

WHAT COULD Seagram have been thinking? The distiller took on almost half a century of tradition earlier this year when it began airing television advertisements in Corpus Christi, Texas. Its industry had upheld a voluntary ban on TV ads for 48 years.Politicians, predictably, reacted with vigor. President Clinton and others called on Seagram to stop. But just last week, the Canada-based distiller announced its intent to plow ahead with more TV spots.It's expanding its advertising markets, bringing Chivas and Crown Royal whiskey to video screens in Boston and several other areas around the country -- including, possibly, a push at Baltimore.

Seagram Co., the Montreal-based conglomerate that operates a liquor bottling plant in Relay, announced yesterday that it will close some warehouses, bottling plants and distilleries throughout its worldwide operations in an effort to boost profits.The company reported a third-quarter loss of $55 million that included a $290 million pretax charge to cover the cost of plant closings and the elimination of jobs.Chris Tofalli, a spokesman for Seagram in New York, said most of the plant closings will be in Europe, but there will be some in the United States.

PITTSBURGH -- Westinghouse Electric Corp. is expected to announce an agreement today to acquire CBS Inc. for about $5 billion, ending weeks of negotiations, people close to the talks said.Westinghouse, which was believed last week to be planning a bid of $81 a share for CBS, plans to make the announcement in New York, where its Group W broadcasting unit and CBS are based.An agreement would put Westinghouse in the lead to land CBS, but several other bidders with deep pockets could emerge now that Walt Disney Co. is snapping up Capital Cities/ABC Inc. for $19 billion in cash and stock, analysts said.

Hollywood's most closely watched deal ended up on the cutting-room floor yesterday as negotiations for Michael Ovitz to become head of the entertainment giant MCA Inc. unexpectedly collapsed.The end of the talks scuttled plans by Seagram Co.'s president, Edgar Bronfman Jr., to give Mr. Ovitz, chairman of the Creative Artists Agency, the reins of MCA, which Seagram now controls.Mr. Ovitz, who wields enormous clout in Hollywood as the top deal maker in the movie business, had been seeking about $250 million in compensation and equity from Seagram in return for agreeing to give up his majority stake in the talent agency and run MCA, individuals involved in the negotiations said.

Utah lawyer favored for SECA veteran Utah lawyer is the apparent front-runner for a Republican seat on the Securities and Exchange Commission, which will have three vacancies at the end of the month.Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is formally backing Norman S. Johnson, 64, of Salt Lake City to join the five-member commission, Hatch spokesman Paul Smith said yesterday. Mr. Johnson said Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., forwarded his name to President Clinton in a May 16 letter.Comsat considers stock saleComsat Corp.

The U.S. liquor industry decided yesterday to end a decades-long voluntary ban on the advertising of liquor products such as vodka, Scotch whisky, gin and tequila on television and radio.The decision by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, or Discus, the liquor trade association, came six months after Seagram Co., the nation's second-largest seller of distilled spirits, began defying the ban -- in effect since 1936 for radio and 1948 for television -- by running commercials in scattered markets.

Clear. Fruity. Sweet. Effervescent. Look how far that most basic of thirst-quenchers -- water -- has come.Bottled spring waters gained popularity in the 1970s, but the '90s will be known for a new twist: sweetened sparkling H20 infused with fruit flavors such as key lime, peach and black cherry.These refreshers are racking up impressive sales in a category the beverage industry calls "New Age" drinks."New Age is virtually anything non-alcoholic that isn't a traditional soft drink -- that is, not a dark cola, lemon-lime, root beer or flavor line such as grape or orange," says Greg Prince, senior editor of Beverage World magazine, "and has a 'sheen' to it, meaning, essentially, it reeks of newness, freshness and 'betterness.

Seagram Co. continued yesterday to move quickly toward buying control of MCA Inc. amid growing confusion over whether the widely reported $7 billion price tag for 80 percent of the company was overstated by as much as $1.4 billion.Sources close to the deal, expected to be announced as early as tomorrow, said that the reported price leaked out Thursday was too high, and that Seagram would actually be paying only $5.6 billion.On Thursday, sources close to the situation had said that $7 billion was the price being paid for the 80 percent stake, which would put MCA's total value at close to $9 billion.

Seagram Co. has agreed to pay $7 billion to buy 80 percent of the movie and entertainment company MCA Inc. from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., people close to the deal said yesterday.Matsushita acquired MCA in 1990, during the heady days of Japanese investment in the United States, but has agreed to cede control after failing to master the vagaries of Hollywood and a disgruntled U.S. management team.The money for the acquisition will come from the sale by Seagram of nearly all its 25 percent stake in DuPont for $8.8 billion in cash.