BRIEFCASE FIVE NEW SIZZLERS PLANNED FOR VEGAS.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

SHERMAN OAKS - Sizzler has signed a five-restaurant development deal for the Las Vegas market, parent Worldwide Restaurant Concepts Inc. announced Wednesday.

Worldwide signed a three-year contract with Witman's Food LLC, which acquired two Sizzlers as part of the deal. A third restaurant should open within a year.

Merrill Lynch suit tossed by judge

NEW YORK - A federal judge on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit that claimed that a conflict of interest at Merrill Lynch & Co. was to blame for the sharp drop in a technology-stock mutual fund after the dot-com bubble burst three years ago.

Investors had claimed that Merrill's Global Technology Fund invested in stocks whose prices had been pumped up by misleading positive research reports issued by Merrill analysts in hopes of luring investment-banking business.

But U.S. District Judge Milton Pollack ruled that the management of the Merrill fund is a separate entity from the Merrill brokerage and investment banking arms.

Even if there was an apparent conflict of interest, the judge ruled, the conflict was public knowledge long before the market for tech stocks peaked in 2000 and began its steep decline.

Buyout firm to get a stake in Aurora

ST. LOUIS - Aurora Foods, maker of Aunt Jemima pancakes, Duncan Hines baking mixes and other foods, plans to restructure through a pre-negotiated bankruptcy that gives a buyout firm a majority stake in the reorganized company, officials said Wednesday.

J.W. Childs Associates of Boston would invest $200 million in exchange for a 65.6 percent equity interest in Aurora. Debt-holders would get about 29.5 percent of the reorganized company's common stock. Existing common and preferred stockholders would get a 4.9 percent stake. Holders of senior unsecured notes would receive about $29 million in new unsecured notes.

The pre-negotiated reorganization plan will eventually be filed through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, Aurora spokesman Alan Oshiki said. No timetable has been set.

Hundreds may go at AT&T Wireless

SEATTLE - AT&T Wireless expects to cut hundreds of employees this year as the country's third-largest wireless telecommunications provider strives to lower costs.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company is consolidating its administrative operations, now spread out in dozens of locations across the country, into two geographic locations - Redmond and New Jersey/New York, AT&T Wireless spokesman Mark Siegel said Wednesday. The move will help reduce real estate costs, he said.

Although employees in departments including finance, personnel and information technology were given the choice of relocating, some refused and are being cut from the payroll, he said. They will receive severance packages.

Baxter set to shut centers, cut jobs

CHICAGO - Baxter International Inc. said Wednesday that it will close 26 plasma collection centers and cut about 2,500 jobs to improve profitability in a competitive market.

The Deerfield, Ill.-based medical products maker also will close a plasma-processing facility in Rochester, Mich.

The job cuts account for 5 percent of Baxter's global work force. Baxter said it will take a $200 million charge in the second quarter to write down facilities and pay employee severance costs.

Analysts said Baxter's move makes sense given the current oversupply in the plasma market. The Rochester processing center is Baxter's smallest facility, and shutting it will reduce capacity by about the right amount, analysts said.