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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Friday, November 24, 2000

CB Richard Ellis gets buyout bid

LOS ANGELES -- The real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis Services Inc. has hired a team to advise company directors reviewing a $340 million buyout offer. CB Richard Ellis Services said New York investment banker Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. and the Los Angeles law firm McDermott, Will & Emery will review the bid and assist in alternatives. The company wouldn't elaborate.

The $340 million offer for CB was made last week by a group that includes top executives and San Francisco-based Blum Capital Partners, which owns a stake in the company.

Another suitor passes on Quaker Oats deal

PARIS -- The chief executive of French group Danone said although the company dropped plans to buy Quaker Oats Co. the food and drinks conglomerate still has ambitions to enter the U.S. market.

"There are a thousand other ways of being interested in the U.S." Franck Riboud said in an interview published today in Le Monde newspaper. Danone suddenly dropped its offer yesterday for the Chicago-based cereals maker and owner of the sough-after Gatorade sports drink brand -- just one day after it confirmed its interest in an all-share deal.

Danone unveiled its interest after Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. decided to scrap its own plan for a $15 billion-plus offer. Quaker has also rejected a $14.8 billion offer by PepsiCo Inc.