General Cinema Corp. First-quarter earnings rose 59%...

General Cinema Corp. First-quarter earnings rose 59% from a year ago to $44 million, according to the Chestnut Hill, Mass.-based movie theater firm and soft-drink bottler. The results include a pretax gain of $55.7 million in connection with the redemption of debt exchangeable for RJR Nabisco stock. General Cinema has agreed to sell its soft-drink bottling business to PepsiCo for $1.75 billion and said it expects to complete the deal by late March or early April.