VIDEO CHAIN SPINOFF IN VIEW; BLOCKBUSTER IPO PLANNED.Byline: Seth Sutel Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Wanting to focus on its main businesses of making movies and shows for its TV networks, Viacom Inc. has applied for permission to sell shares in Blockbuster, the video rental company it bought five years ago. Viacom filed an application with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday to make an initial public offering of stock in Blockbuster Inc., the nation's leading home video chain, with 6,500 stores nationwide. Viacom, which runs the MTV MTV in full Music Television U.S. cable television network, established in 1980 to present videos of musicians and singers performing new rock music. MTV won a wide following among rock-music fans worldwide and greatly affected the popular-music business. , VH1 and Nickelodeon networks, acquired Blockbuster for $8.5 billion in stock as part of a heated takeover battle for the Paramount movie studio. Viacom needed the cash generated by Blockbuster to pay down the debt incurred in the Paramount purchase. Since then, Viacom's chairman Sumner Redstone Sumner Murray Redstone (born Sumner Murray Rothstein on May 27 1923 in Boston, Massachusetts) is majority owner and Chairman of the Board of the National Amusements theater chain. Through National Amusements, he is majority owner of Midway Games, Viacom and CBS Corporation. has sold off a number of assets to tighten the company's focus on its successful entertainment businesses and pay down debt. While many details of the deal have yet to be worked out, including when a full spinoff could occur, Blockbuster has long been expected to be the next Viacom asset to go on the block. Last year Viacom sold most of the Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster U.S. publishing company. It was founded in 1924 by Richard L. Simon (1899–1960) and M. Lincoln Schuster (1897–1970), whose initial project, the original crossword-puzzle book, was a best-seller. publishing house to a British media group, Pearson, and it also has shed interests in the USA network, Madison Square Garden Current arenas in the National Hockey League Western Conference Eastern Conference in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and some radio stations. Wall Street analysts have welcomed Viacom's efforts to focus on its strengths. In addition to three strong TV networks and the successful Paramount studio, Viacom owns about 80 percent of Spelling Entertainment Group, a successful TV production company whose hits include ``Melrose Place'' and ``Beverly Hills 90210.'' ``The last step is now to separate Blockbuster and let Viacom focus on being a media conglomerate,'' said Rob Donahue, portfolio manager and media analyst at Salomon Brothers Asset Management. ``Viacom will be a steady, high-growing media business.'' Shares of Viacom fell 12.5 cents to $41.75 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. . |
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