Westinghouse Electric Corp.’s board of directors will meet Tuesday amid speculation that the company will consider spinning off its entertainment operation from its industrial businesses.
The show-business newspaper Variety said the board will consider the question at its meeting in Pittsburgh, although no immediate announcement is likely. Westinghouse declined to comment.
Westinghouse, which last year bought CBS Inc., has been under increasing pressure from Wall Street to sell its less profitable industrial assets or to separate the more profitable broadcasting division into a different class of stock. Despite the market boom this year, Westinghouse stock has been stagnant, trading at about a dollar less than at the beginning of the year.
On Monday, the company cited lower CBS television ratings during NBC’s broadcast of the Summer Olympics as the reason for a 94 percent profit slide during the third quarter. Westinghouse posted a $28 million third-quarter loss, after taking a $30 million after-tax charge for the early retirement of debt.
While that’s an improvement over the $52 million loss reported in the year-earlier period, the loss exceeded Wall Street expectations. Westinghouse stock closed Monday at $17.25, down 12 cents.
