Viacom

QVC, BellSouth discuss bidRepresentatives of QVC Network Inc. and BellSouth Corp. met the last two days to discuss the possibility of QVC revising its bid for Paramount Communications Inc., sources said yesterday.Final bids in the five-month fight between QVC and Viacom Inc. are due by Tuesday.BellSouth is the largest investor in QVC's bid for Paramount, having agreed to put up $1.5 billion.Viacom is offering $105 a share in cash for 50.1 percent of the company, compared with QVC's bid of $92 a share in cash for the same percentage.

Viacom Inc.'s 70-year-old chairman, Sumner M. Redstone -- a man who began his career managing two movie theaters and will now personally control what becomes the nation's second-largest media conglomerate after Time Warner -- has suddenly become the most powerful executive in the entertainment business.But to achieve that status, Mr. Redstone has taken on billions of dollars in debt and the daunting task of melding Viacom and Paramount Communications Inc., a disparate empire that will include Paramount Pictures, MTV, Simon & Schuster, cable television stations, the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York Rangers hockey team.

WASHINGTON -- "Greenmail" -- a favorite and lucrative tactic of corporate raiders -- survived its first legal challenge in the Supreme Court yesterday.Without explanation, the court voted to leave intact a federal appeals court ruling that had blocked a claim that greenmail is a form of "white collar extortion" outlawed by the federal extortion law.The appeals court had said that a target of greenmail by corporate raider Carl C. Icahn -- Viacom International Inc. -- had suffered no damages, and thus a lawsuit seeking a tripled monetary award against him could not go forward.

U S West adds sites to networkU S West Inc. identified four more sites yesterday for its proposed multimedia network, which would bring movies, shopping, games and pay-per-view video into homes.The regional phone company said it will add Denver, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Boise, Idaho, and Portland, Ore., to the network, already under construction in Omaha, Neb.The company also said that it would add 10 more cities to its construction list by midyear.Merger plan hurts Viacom stockInvestors sent Viacom Inc. stock plunging yesterday, suggesting its merger plan with Blockbuster Entertainment Corp.

HOLLYWOOD -- Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner Redstone was crowing Wednesday, the day after his harsh public dismissal of superstar Tom Cruise sent shivers through Hollywood and destroyed the feel-good spirit that had imbued his company's Paramount Pictures studio this summer. For Redstone, a bump in Viacom's stock price - however slight - outweighed any hangover in Hollywood his blunt remarks about one of Paramount's most bankable stars may have caused. Redstone said he was justly reassuring Wall Street that Paramount would not squander profits by overpaying stars in an effort to help lift Viacom's recently sagging stock price.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to clarify the right of stockholders to sue corporate insiders to force them to give up profits made by buying or selling company stock.Under federal law, profits that an insider made by dealing in company stock within a span of six months -- "short-swing profits" -- can be recovered for the company's benefit through a stockholder lawsuit.The law is unclear, however, about a stock that was traded but has ceased to exist because it has been converted as part of a merger deal, meaning that the stockholder challenging short-swing profits no longer owns the original stock.

The admiral went down with his ship, after some persuading.Every politician in America knows that the way to keep more violent criminals longer behind bars is not to pass more laws but to build more prisons.North Korea will let us inspect as long as we don't look where the bombs are.Viacom won out over QVC for Paramount and you are supposed to care.

NEW YORK -- Call it the power of a misleading headline. Or blame it on the desire of money managers to get home at a decent hour on Friday night.But whatever the reason, the great takeover war for Paramount Communications will drag on for two more weeks, despite the fact Viacom decided not to come up with an offer that was better than the one QVC Network had made.How could that be? The headline that hit the tape late Friday afternoon talked of an offer of $105 a share in cash for control of Paramount.

Report of spinoff boosts SignetShares of Signet Banking Corp. were up nearly 5 percent yesterday amid speculation that the Richmond, Va., bank holding company may soon announce the sale of a partial interest in its growing credit-card business to the public. Signet shares closed up $1.75, to $37, in active trading.Thomas Brown, banking analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corp., sparked the rise in Signet shares by issuing a report yesterday saying a partial spinoff was near.

NEW YORK -- The five-month battle for Paramount Communications Inc. may have been hell for bidders and the news-weary public. But it was heaven for the investment bankers and the lawyers, judging by the fees they pulled down.Investment bankers and investors estimate that Paramount Communications Inc., Viacom Inc. and QVC Network Inc. may end up paying as much as $150 million total for their army of advisers.Investment advisers worked around-the-clock for months as QVC and Viacom rehashed the terms of their bids and lobbied Paramount's board and investors.