AEROSPACE

Boeing seeks to lower cost of pensions

Boeing Co. proposed putting newly hired machinists in a 401(k)-style retirement plan to ease a pension liability it estimates at $46 billion.

The company's machinists union has said it opposes the proposal, among the most significant concessions Boeing sought as it opened formal talks on a new three-year labor contract. The 26,000 machinists now get a defined-benefit pension that guarantees a portion of their income in retirement.

Chicago-based Boeing also wants to restructure machinists' top wage rates, which it says exceed market averages, and reduce healthcare costs.

SECURITIES

DreamWorks investor cashes in

Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corp., sold $35.3 million in shares of DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., dropping to its sixth-largest shareholder.

Allen sold 1.17 million shares this week for $30.22 to $30.44 each, according to a regulatory filing. He still owns 3.07 million shares of the Glendale-based company.

DreamWorks Animation is trading at its highest level since November after it reported first-quarter profit and revenue last month that beat analysts' estimates.

AGRICULTURE

Corn crop could be 7% smaller

Corn production this year could be down as much as 7% from the record-breaking heights of 2007, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report.

The report projects that farmers will harvest about 12 billion bushels of corn this year. About one-third of the harvest will be directed toward ethanol production, the USDA estimates.

The revised projections came as wet weather in the Corn Belt slowed plantings.

BANKING

Wachovia CEO loses board seat

Wachovia Corp. Chief Executive Kennedy Thompson, under fire for buying Oakland-based Golden West Financial Corp. as the housing market peaked in 2006, was stripped of his role as chairman of the fourth-largest U.S. bank.

Lanty Smith will become nonexecutive chairman, Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia said. Thompson, 57, remains on the board and retains full management responsibility, spokeswoman Christy Phillips Brown said.

TELECOM

Leap grows, but its profit shrinks

Leap Wireless International Inc., operator of the Cricket and Jump pay-as-you-go mobile-phone services, reported a narrower first-quarter loss after adding more customers.

The San Diego-based company said its loss shrank to $18.1 million, or 27 cents a share, from $24.2 million, or 36 cents, a year earlier. Sales advanced 19% to $468.4 million as Leap added a net 230,000 customers in the quarter.

Shares of Leap rose $4.38 to $54.48.

ENTERTAINMENT

Verbinski to make 'BioShock' movie

Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. said "Pirates of the Caribbean" director Gore Verbinski will make a movie version of "BioShock," its hit video game about an underwater utopia gone disastrously wrong.

The movie will be made by Universal Pictures, a unit of NBC Universal owned by General Electric Co. John Logan, writer of "Gladiator" and "Sweeney Todd," was in talks to pen the screenplay, New York-based Take-Two said.

From Times Wire Services