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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Monday, September 25, 2000

Liberty may raise News Corp. stake

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Liberty Media Corp., AT&T Corp.'s television programming unit, is in talks to more than double its stake in Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to 20 percent, the Financial Times and other newspapers reported. In exchange for the larger News Corp. stake, Liberty may transfer its 21 percent stake in Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. to News Corp., the FT reported, without citing sources. Liberty's stake in Gemstar is valued at about $6.73 billion, based on Gemstar's closing price Friday. News Corp. owns about 21 percent of Gemstar. Liberty owns about 8 percent of News Corp. If the deal is completed, Liberty, run by cable pioneer John Malone, would become the second largest News Corp. shareholder after the Murdoch family, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Two auction houses agree to settle suit

NEW YORK -- Sotheby's Holdings Inc. and former Chairman A. Alfred Taubman said they agreed to pay $256 million to settle a suit they colluded with Christies International Plc to fix commissions on the sale of art works. London-based Christies, the largest auction house, also will pay $256 million to settle, the New York Times quoted lawyers as saying. Christies spokesman Fred Goetzen declined comment. Sotheby's will pay another $70 million to resolve a separate shareholder suit, spokesman Matthew Weigman said.

Insurance companies in $2.1 billion deal

NEW YORK -- White Mountains Insurance Group Inc., headed by longtime insurance executive John J. Byrne, said today it will buy the U.S. property-casualty insurance operations of British insurer CGNU Plc for $2.1 billion.

Byrne previously ran the auto insurer Geico Inc., now a unit of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. White Mountains said Berkshire Hathaway will invest up to $300 million in the company as part of the deal.

News of the purchase, which also includes the assumption of $500 million of debt, sent shares of White Mountains surging 22 percent, or $37.63, to close at $212.13 on the New York Stock Exchange.

White Mountains, based in Hanover, N.H., owns Folksamerica, a reinsurance concern, and a 50 percent stake in Main Street America Holdings, a property-casualty insurance firm jointly owned with National Grange Mutual Insurance.