U.S. probes Ticketmaster on resellers
NEW YORK, April 4 (UPI) -- Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. says U.S. and state officials are investigating its business relationships with concert ticket resellers.
The company, in an e-mail sent Friday to ticket resellers who use its TicketsNow Web site, Ticketmaster said the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the New Jersey Attorney General, the Canadian Competition Bureau and others were seeking information about its relationships with resellers, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The e-mail said the officials had demanded to see names and business contracts of every broker who uses TicketsNow, where tickets to sold-out shows are re-sold at many times their face value, the Journal said.
The newspaper reported it was unclear if the probe was connected to Ticketmaster's proposed merger with concert promoter Live Nation Inc., which is under review by the Justice Department.
The move comes after a February incident in which customers reportedly said they were redirected from Ticketmaster's Web site to TicketsNow when trying to buy ducats to two Bruce Springsteen concerts in New Jersey.
JWT closes legendary Chicago ad office
CHICAGO, April 4 (UPI) -- Advertising agency JWT says it is closing its 118-year-old Chicago office, which at one time had 800 employees.
Citing a "difficult economic period," agency officials said Friday its work for clients Kimberly-Clark and Nestle would be carried out at its offices in New York, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Unnamed sources told the Chicago Tribune the status of JWT's biggest remaining local account, the Illinois Bureau of Tourism, is under review, and that if it is retained, a satellite office may remain open in Chicago to service it.
Responsible for such classic American advertising staples as the "Oh, I wish I was an Oscar Mayer wiener" jingle, 7-Up's "Uncola" campaign and the "There's a Ford in Your Future" campaign of the 1940s, JWT lost its key Miller Brewing account in 2003, and four years later Kraft Foods pulled its business from JWT's Chicago office, the Tribune reported.
That proved to be a crushing blow for the Chicago office of the agency formerly known as J. Walter Thompson, the newspaper said.
Report: MGM Mirage seeks to sell casinos
LAS VEGAS, April 4 (UPI) -- Casino owner MGM Mirage is courting buyers for its facilities in Detroit and Biloxi, Miss., to meet looming debt obligations, sources say.
The Las Vegas company is holding a "private auction" to find takers for two of its dependable cash cows -- the MGM Grand Detroit and Biloxi's Beau Rivage casino -- to help meet obligations on its $13.5 billion debtload as well as to save its foundering CityCenter project on the Las Vegas Strip, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
The newspaper also said its sources indicate that Australian billionaire and gambling magnate James Packer is considering getting involved with MGM Mirage's troubled $8.6 billion CityCenter real estate project.
Lenders recently gave MGM Mirage a two-month extension, but the company warned it may not be able to meet a May 15 deadline by which it must improve its cash-to-debt ratios.
The Journal quoted industry analysts saying that a sale of the Detroit and Biloxi casinos might bring as much as $2 billion to the company, giving it a much-needed cash boost at a time when gambling revenues are plunging due to the recession.
GMAC cuts back executive bonuses
DETROIT, April 4 (UPI) -- The bailed-out U.S. car-financing firm GMAC says it paid out fewer executive bonuses in the fourth quarter than in earlier periods.
The reduction in so-called retention bonuses reflects how the provisions of the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program is working to curb executive bonuses, The Detroit Free Press reported Saturday.
GMAC Financial Services was converted into a bank holding company last year to accept $5 billion under TARP, and in that time, bonuses fell from $28 million in third quarter of 2008 to $10 million in the year-ending quarter, the newspaper said.
CEO Al de Molina, who received $4.64 million in the third quarter to make up for the loss of value of his pension plan, received nothing in the fourth quarter, filing documents showed.
The company, in which General Motors is a minority owner, said earlier this week it would devote $5 billion to consumer auto loans in next two months, easing wholesale financing charges for dealers in a bid to improve slumping sales, The Wall Street Journal said.
