Movies: Newmarket Capital Group is providing a...

Movies: Newmarket Capital Group is providing a $50-million fund for international sales and distribution company Summit Entertainment to finance the production and acquisition of movies. Summit--headed by Patrick Wachsberger, Bob Hayward and David Garrett--has deals with such producers as Mandalay, Constantin and Lakeshore. Newmarket, founded in 1994 by William Tyrer and Chris J. Ball, is involved in making loans to independent producers. The company has financed such films as “The Usual Suspects.”

*

Music: SC Fundamental Inc. and its affiliates raised their stake in Musicland Stores Corp. to 14.5% from 13.09% of common shares outstanding. The investment group purchased 481,050 shares at $2.13 to $2.63 a share between Jan. 31 and March 14, according to papers filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SC Fundamental group now holds 4.98 million shares in Musicland, a Minneapolis-based company that operates about 1,496 stores under names such as Sam Goody and Suncoast Motion Picture Co. SC Fundamental is a group of hedge funds run by Gary Siegler, who once worked for investor Carl Icahn, and his partner Peter Collery. The two formerly worked in the corporate finance division of Dillon, Read & Co.

*

Cable: Knight-Ridder Inc. has agreed to sell its 50% stake in cable TV system owner TKR Cable Co. to its partner, Tele-Communications Inc., for about $420 million in cash and stock, the companies said. The sale is part of a plan by Knight-Ridder, a leading newspaper publisher, to pull out of the fast-consolidating cable business. It bought into TKR in the early 1980s. “You can’t be a little player in cable anymore,” Knight-Ridder spokesman Polk Laffoon said. “It doesn’t make sense for us to stay there.” TKR, based in Warren, N.J., serves about 460,000 subscribers in New Jersey and New York. A related venture that Knight-Ridder also sold to TCI had about 136,000 subscribers in the South. The actual sale price could be as low as $400 million, depending on how TCI chooses to pay at the closing, expected later this year, TCI spokeswoman LaRae Marsik said. The deal will give Englewood, Colo.-based TCI, the nation’s largest cable operator, more than 14 million subscribers.