Carolco to Get $74 Million as Part of Restructuring : Movies: Deal heads off suits by creative unions. Firm pledges its stake in Live Entertainment as collateral.

Carolco Pictures Inc., the company behind such high-priced hits as “Terminator 2” and “Basic Instinct,” announced a restructuring Tuesday that averted a lawsuit and perhaps kept the firm from seeking bankruptcy code protection.

Carolco said that agreements reached with major bank lenders and foreign investors allowed it to fashion a $73.8-million financing package, including $32.2 million in loans.

To win the financing, Carolco pledged its 53% stake in Live Entertainment Inc., a Van Nuys-based distributor of videocassettes.

The company also announced that it will take a “substantial” writedown of about $100 million for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31.

The restructuring was welcomed by an attorney representing trade union groups that had threatened over the weekend to sue Carolco. The unions alleged that their members were due residual payments from TV, home video and foreign theatrical releases of their performances.

“We were going to go into court this afternoon,” said Leo Geffner, a Burbank lawyer representing the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild of America and two other groups of writers and technicians.

Geffner said Carolco, as part of the restructuring, promised immediate payment of $2.3 million in overdue residuals. It also allowed representatives of the unions to begin auditing the company’s books Tuesday.

Both Geffner and a securities analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity said Carolco’s restructuring was viewed as an alternative to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

“We’ve heard the whole point of this restructuring was to avoid” Chapter 11, Geffner said.

Asked if the company had considered seeking bankruptcy code protection, Chairman Mario F. Kassar said, “We don’t speculate on something that hasn’t happened.”

Kassar said he will seek to continue trimming Carolco’s debt while “concentrating on the core business” of trying to produce four or more films a year.

Trading of Los Angeles-based Carolco’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange was suspended before the restructuring announcement. Trading later resumed, and the stock closed at $2.875, down 50 cents. Carolco’s stock traded as high as $10.875 last year and as low as 87.5 cents this year.

In addition to the overall financing package, which Carolco valued at $73.8 million, the company said its principal institutional lenders--Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland, Bankers Trust Co. and Chemical Bank--have agreed to loan it an additional $23 million.

The new loan terms “require significant reductions in (Carolco’s) outstanding loans in 1992,” according to a company statement. A spokeswoman said Carolco owes the banks approximately $168 million.

Carolco also said it will offer current shareholders the right to buy one additional share of stock for every 4.9999 shares now held. The price will be tied to the value of unpaid dividends on the company’s preferred stock.