Business Briefing

Rates on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, a popular choice for refinancing, fell to 5.35% from 5.54%. Five-year, adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 5.67%, down from 5.87% last week. One-year, adjustable-rate mortgages fell to 5.03% from 5.21%.

These rates do not include add-on fees known as points. The nationwide fee for 30- and 15-year mortgages averaged 0.6 of a point. The average fee for five-year mortgages was 0.7 of a point while the fee on one-year mortgages was 0.5 of a point.

VIDEO GAMES

Redstone firm to back up Midway

Sumner Redstone's National Amusements Inc. agreed to provide as much as $40 million in financing to Midway Games Inc., the money-losing video game maker the media billionaire also controls.

National Amusements will supply the funds by buying receivables, Chicago-based Midway said. The company had $14.6 million in cash as of June 30, down from $57 million a year earlier.

Midway is cutting jobs and reducing development spending to lower costs.

REAL ESTATE

Citigroup Center is sold to Hines

Hines, the Houston-based real estate firm, acquired Citigroup Center in downtown Los Angeles from New York real estate investor Broadway Partners.

The sale price for the 48-story, 891,056-square-foot building was not disclosed. Dan Fasulo, managing director of Real Capital Analytics, a New York real estate data firm, said the building sold for $280 million, or $314 a square foot.

The building at 444 Flower St., in downtown's Bunker Hill area, was completed in 1981 and is 93% leased with tenants including oil company BP and Wells Fargo & Co.

BANKING

Downey deposits rise in August

Savings and loan Downey Financial Corp., which has reported four consecutive quarterly losses, said deposits at its branches rose in August and that assets no longer collecting interest declined slightly.

Deposits at the Newport Beach lender's 169 Downey Savings & Loan branches rose to $9.85 billion at the end of August from $9.37 billion the previous month, Downey said in a regulatory filing.

AUTOS

GM to sell G3, a Korean-built car

General Motors Corp. says it will begin selling a Korean-built small car under the Pontiac nameplate starting next year.

The G3, a rebadged version of the Chevrolet Aveo, will debut in the spring and be the lowest-priced Pontiac.

AIRLINES

Offer for Alitalia is withdrawn

A group of Italian investors unanimously withdrew a bid to buy Alitalia after six of its nine unions failed to back a rescue plan, a move that edged Italy's national carrier closer to failure, the group said in a statement.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi laid the blame on the unions that refused to sign off on an industrial plan that would have had the investors inject 1 billion euros, or $1.4 billion, into the bankrupt airline, retain its profitable assets and combine them with smaller Air One.

From Times Wire Services