Harold Maass of The Week The Best of Today's Business

NEWS AT A GLANCE

DreamWorks looks to India to shed Viacom

DreamWorks SKG is close to a deal with Indian entertainment conglomerate Reliance ADA Group, The Wall Street Journal reported. The joint venture would give DreamWorks $500 million to $600 million that it could put toward ending its increasingly tense relationship with Viacom's Paramount Pictures. (Reuters) Viacom bought DreamWorks for $1.6 billion in 2004. Reliance is talking to other Hollywood studios. (Los Angeles Times, free registration) Hollywood, meanwhile, is on track to beat last year's record $4 billion summer take. So far this summer, box office receipts had totaled $1.46 billion, up 5 percent from last year. "It's the least expensive way to get that entertainment fix," said Paul Dergarabedian of Media By Numbers. (MarketWatch)

Sanofi makes play for Czech generics maker

Top French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis made a $2.6 billion bid for Czech pharmaceutical firm Zentiva, topping an earlier offer from financial firm PFF Group. Sanofi already owns 24.9 percent of Zentiva, which specializes in generic drugs, and PFF and its allies own 19.2 percent. (Reuters) Sanofi's offer tops PFF's by about 11 percent, and is 15 percent higher than Zentiva's share price before PFF's offer. Generics, which are seeing twice the growth rate of branded drugs, currently account for only 2 percent of Sanofi's sales. "This might signify that they are truly interested in building their generics business," said Bram Buring at Wood & Co. (Bloomberg)

LinkedIn joins ranks of billionaires

Professionals-oriented social networking site LinkedIn said Bain Capital Ventures and three existing investors purchased 5 percent of the company for $53 million, valuing LinkedIn at just over $1 billion. The 5-year-old company, which has been profitable since 2006, joins Facebook in the billionaire social-networking club. (Los Angeles Times, free registration) LinkedIn was the fourth most visited social site in May, but in contrast to the demographics of the other sites, its average member is 41 and earns $109,000 a year. It has 23 million members worldwide. (Reuters) "There are a lot of people who have both a Facebook and a LinkedIn account," said Jeffrey Glass of Bain Capital. "I think there's a lot of opportunity for these worlds to coexist." (The Wall Street Journal, paid subscription)

BEST COLUMNS OF THE DAY

Oiling your portfolio

As everyone knows, "oil is in a raging bull market," says Brett Arends in The Wall Street Journal. And "if you're sitting on the sidelines, you are missing out on profits." You're already "on the other side of this market," paying exorbitant gas prices, so you might as well cash in. And it's not too late. Oil is at record highs, but "so far, the boom has left big oil stocks trailing." The safest way for average investors to buy in is by slowly investing in a fund that invests in big oil companies, like an exchange-traded fund. It's true that "no investments are perfectly safe," but the shares of big oil companies "already anticipate a pretty sharp fall in the oil price." Comparatively, big oil today isn't that big of a risk.

Why the long face?

Ask Americans about the economy and "their answer is stark," says Neil Irwin in The Washington Post. They'll say "it is not just bad, it is run-for-the-hills terrible." But is it? "Soft? You betcha. In recession? Quite possibly." But when you look at "most broad measures" of the economy, "it's not that grim." Unemployment isn't that high, not so many jobs have been shed, and GDP is still growing. So why the disconnect? Maybe the things that are up (gas and food) and down (home values) affect most people more often. It could also be that we're just used to good times, so any downturn "feels terrible." But real or not, it matters what we think -- pessimism can easily become a "self-fulfilling prophecy."

GOOD DAY FOR: Working in the park, after a group of local investors took over a work-in-progress Philadelphia-wide free wireless Internet venture from EarthLink. EarthLink dropped the project after few people signed up for its $20-a-month service. Under new ownership, the service will be free and, eventually, available outdoors all over Philadelphia. (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

BAD DAY FOR: Belt tightening, as people looking to trim expenses are finding that walking and jogging outside is cheaper than belonging to a gym. Gym memberships fell for the first time in a decade last year, according to the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, and the numbers seem to be getting worse for gyms. (Los Angeles Times, free registration)

NOTED: Stockholm-based Hennes & Mauriz, Europe's No. 2 clothing retailer, reported a better-than-forecast 14 percent rise in quarterly profit, to $650 million, as budget-conscious shoppers started buying summer clothes. "Stores in the low price segment are relatively better off," said Evli Bank analyst Anders Wiklund. "People still need to buy clothes." H&M buys 60 percent of its clothes in Asia, in dollars, and the greenback's weakness versus the Swedish kronor also helped its bottom line. (Bloomberg)

This column was written by Peter Weber and edited by Harold Maass of TheWeekDaily.com.