A federal class-action lawsuit against DreamWorks Animation SKG over the poor box office results for its 2013 release “Turbo” has been dismissed. A California federal judge ruled that while executive forecasts turned out to be incorrect, there was “a series of reasoned factors that led the company to anticipate ‘Turbo’ would be profitable,” according to a story in the New York Post. The July 2103 feature film about a snail who becomes a successful racer cost $135 million to make and grossed $283 million worldwide, forcing the studio in February 2014 to take a $13.5 million write-down on the film. Shares plunged 12 percent on the news and another 12 percent after the studio said it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The lawsuit focused on statements made by CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg in a conference call that the studio “believed” the release would be profitable, statements that were not found to be fraudulent. Shares did not trade Friday because the markets were closed. Keith Leonard, chief executive of Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc., sold 13,548 shares of the company stock this week. The transaction yielded about $650,000, with an average share price of $48.10, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In other transactions reported last month, he sold nearly 16,000 shares for a total of $701,000. Leonard, his family trust and other family members still own about 960,000 shares, or 4.8 percent of the Westlake Village company. Kythera is a drug research company awaiting regulatory approval for ATX-101, a treatment that dissolves chin fat. The company is also working on a treatment for male pattern baldness. With markets closed on Good Friday, Kythera’s Thursday closing price was $46.67. LTC Properties Inc. declared a monthly dividend of 17 cents a share. The Westlake Village real estate investment trust that invests in residential health care facilities will pay the dividend on April 30 to stockholders of record on April 22. The dividend has an annual yield of 4.4 percent. With markets closed on Friday, LTC’s Thursday closing price was $46.09.
