Lockheed to Pay for Cleanup Lockheed Martin Corp. agreed to pay about $60 million for the operation of a groundwater treatment plant in Burbank. The plant’s purpose is to clean up toxic contamination left on and under the site where Lockheed formerly made military and commercial planes for six decades. Removing the toxins essentially solvents used in manufacturing planes could take as long as 20 years. The city of Burbank will operate the plant, which Lockheed had built in 1996. Lockheed relocated its Burbank operations to Georgia and Palmdale several years ago. Panasonic Unit Moving Headquarters Panasonic Broadcast & Digital Systems Co. a division of Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems is moving its headquarters from New Jersey to North Hollywood. The division leased about 50,000 square feet at 3330 Cahuenga Blvd., where it will develop and market audio and video products. The move is expected to be completed by the end of the summer, with more than 200 employees, including executives and computer programmers, relocating to the new divisional headquarters. Panasonic is moving the unit so it can be closer to its partner companies and Panasonic’s parent, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which maintains its local offices at Universal City. Dick Clark Enters Joint Venture Burbank-based Dick Clark Productions has formed a joint venture with New York-based Wind-Up Entertainment to release a series of music reissues and compilation CDs starting in September. The discs will be playable on computers with CD-ROM drives and will feature audio as well as video footage from the TV dance show “American Bandstand,” which Clark emceed for 35 years through 1989. As of mid-March, no titles had been selected, but officials from American Bandstand Music (the name of the joint venture) said a wide range of musical categories are being considered including protest music of the 1960s. Clark said he decided to partner with Wind-Up Entertainment, a boutique firm, rather than with a major company because the project would be given a higher priority. Clark founded his company in 1957 to produce “American Bandstand.” It began producing other television shows in the 1960s and went public in 1987. Cohr Restates Earnings Cohr. Inc. restated its 1997 financial results, saying that its earnings were less than half the amount originally reported. Specifically, it reported earnings per share of 42 cents a share after having earlier reported that its 1997 earnings were 88 cents a share. Cohr, a Chatsworth-based hospital services company, said the reason for its downward revision was that “certain equipment and software sales were prematurely recorded and that certain liabilities were understated.” THQ Loses its Fighting Edge The stock price of Calabasas-based video game maker THQ Inc tumbled 24 percent on March 11, when the company announced that its licensing agreement with the World Championship Wrestling League would not be renewed. Two games that feature wrestling stars from the World Championship Wrestling League accounted for 39 percent of the company’s 1997 revenues of $89 million. THQ’s licensing agreement with the WCW expires in mid-1999, after which the license will go to the San Mateo-based game maker Electronic Arts Inc. The news sent THQ shares tumbling nearly $8 a share, to close at $24.50, off from its 52-week high of $32.75 in February. THQ President and Chief Executive Brian J. Farrell declined to comment on why the company’s license, signed in 1995, was not renewed. However, a company spokeswoman suggested that the market for games could not be expected to continue as strongly as it has. Syncor Earnings Jump in Fourth Quarter Chatsworth-based Syncor International, a company that specializes in nuclear medicine, reported a big jump in fourth-quarter earnings on improved sales of its radiopharmaceutical products. Syncor earnings were up 64 percent to $1.7 million (16 cents per diluted share), compared with $200,000 (1 cent) in the year-ago quarter. The company’s fourth-quarter sales were $94.8 million, up 4.3 percent from $90.9 million in the year-earlier period. Annual sales were $380.6 million, a 3.9 percent improvement from 1996.
