Sony Corp

LOS ANGELES -- Foreign investment in Hollywood will rise dramatically during the next 10 years, and ticket prices could increase to $15, according to a survey by the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche.The survey, which was released Friday, questioned 229 senior management executives at U.S. entertainment companies about the movie industry's finances, film distribution and studio ownership in the 1990s.Sixty-seven percent of the executives said that they expect foreign investment and lending to increase dramatically over the next 10 years, while 29 percent expect it to remain at current levels and 1 percent expect it to decrease dramatically.

Masaru Ibuka,89, who guided Sony Corp.'s rise from a humble radio shop to a world electronics leader and helped change global perceptions of Japanese manufacturers, died of heart failure Friday.Mr. Ibuka, called "genius inventor" in college, began producing radio parts after he started a repair shop in a bombed-out JTC building in Tokyo in 1945. The shop, which employed Akio Morita and 20 others, became Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp., Sony's former name.In the early 1950s, Sony bought the rights to an American invention called the transistor, and soon demonstrated the Japanese aptitude for creating revolutionary products from existing technology.

LOS ANGELES - AOL Time Warner Inc., Sony Corp. and other entertainment companies are trying to monopolize the distribution of films and music over the Internet, the owners of the Kazaa file-sharing network say in court papers. Sharman Networks made its claims in response to a copyright-infringement suit filed by AOL, Sony and other companies in 2001. Aiming to avoid the fate of Napster Inc., Sharman seeks a court order to stop the companies from suing to enforce their copyrights. The entertainment industry, which claims that downloads of music, movies and video games deprives it of billions of dollars in sales each year, has succeeded in getting U.S. courts to shut down Napster and similar file-swapping services.

TOKYO -- Hoya Corp., Japan's largest optical glass maker, agreed to buy camera maker Pentax Corp. for 90.6 billion yen ($765 million) to add endoscopes and surgical scissors. Hoya will pay 0.158 of stock, or 709.42 yen, for each Pentax share, the companies said yesterday. The offer is 10.5 percent higher than yesterday's closing stock price. Medical equipment sales at Pentax grew 23 percent in the year that ended March 31 as the company cut its reliance on single-lens reflex cameras because of increased digital competition from Canon Inc. and Sony Corp.

STOUGHTON, Mass. -- Reebok International Ltd., the third-largest U.S. maker of athletic shoes, said yesterday that Carl Yankowski, president and chief executive officer of the Reebok brand, quit to become chief executive of an unidentified company.Reebok International Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paul Fireman will assume Yankowski's duties. Yankowski, 51, joined Reebok 14 months ago from Sony Corp. His resignation is effective immediately.Yankowski was named in August 1998 to oversee licensing, sales, marketing and advertising of Reebok-brand items, as well as development of shoes and clothing.

Ellis A. Cohen, whose true-life TV movies introduced the nation to a disabled woman coaching Little League baseball and a paralyzed girl learning to walk through electricity, is taking us behind bars in his latest project to meet a convicted rapist.But was he guilty?In "Dangerous Evidence," published in paperback by Berkley Books, Mr. Cohen and co-author Milton J. Shapiro take on alleged racism and injustice in the Marine Corps, examining how a 1983 court-martial convicted black Marine Cpl. Lindsey Scott and sentenced him to 30 years on charges of raping and stabbing the wife of a white fellow Marine.

Leslie Fay closing last U.S. plantSaying it was no longer possible to make dresses profitably in the United States, Leslie Fay Cos. said yesterday that it would close its only domestic plant at the end of July and eliminate 600 jobs.Leslie Fay, once one of the nation's largest women's clothing manufacturers, said a study found that manufacturing costs at its Wilkes-Barre, Pa., plant were keeping it from being competitive. Last year, Leslie Fay shut four of its five U.S. plants and cut 1,050 jobs, inciting a 40-day strike that ended with an agreement to hire 600 in Wilkes-Barre.

Apple Computer profits, stock riseApple Computer Inc., which recorded steep losses a year ago due to a restructuring, yesterday reported better-than-expected profits for the latest quarter, sending its stock sharply higher.Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple cited strong sales of its new Power Macintosh computer for a 15 percent boost in revenues, as well as the effect of lower costs associated with the restructuring.Apple said its net income for the third fiscal quarter was $138.1 million, or $1.16 a share, compared with a net loss of $188.

Turner tries to get film rightsTurner Broadcasting System Inc. disclosed yesterday that it is close to signing deals with two major Hollywood studios for exclusive rights that would raise its movie library to about 4,000 films.A Turner Network Television executive said the cable TV giant was in "deep conversations" with several studios including Warner Bros., Sony Corp.'s Columbia Pictures Entertainment Inc., Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. and United Artists Corp.GM sells Lotus subsidiaryGeneral Motors Corp.

BGE unit to sell 10 acres in Va.Baltimore Gas & Electric Co.'s Constellation Real Estate unit said yesterday that it has agreed to sell a 10-acre site at its Parkway Crossing project in Northern Virginia to Dayton Hudson Corp., parent of the Target discount retail chain. Terms were not disclosed.The 50-acre project in Woodbridge, Va., is adjacent to the Potomac Mills Mall discount outlet center, which attracts 13 million customers annually. Constellation and a Virginia development firm bought the land in March.