DirecTV Sells 25% of Its Stake in Thomson

DirecTV Inc., the No. 1 satellite broadcaster, sold 4.1 million shares of Thomson Multimedia, or about a quarter of its holdings in the Paris-based consumer-electronics maker.

The stake is valued at $131.3 million. DirecTV, a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp., now owns 8.8 million shares, or 3.1% of the company.

Thomson Multimedia, formerly state-owned, sold stakes to industrial partners in 1998 before selling shares to the public the next year. These partners--Microsoft Corp., NEC Corp., Alcatel and DirecTV--which now own a combined 20%, work with Thomson to develop products such as decoders and digital disk drives. The French state owns 36% of the company, and more than 33% is publicly traded.