Joint Venture

Eastman Kodak Co. yesterday confirmed the rumors: Its pharmaceutical and health-products subsidiary, Sterling Winthrop Inc., is for sale. The announcement raises the possibility that the European operations of Sterling Winthrop, whose American research headquarters is in Montgomery County, could end up with the same French owners as the former Pennwalt Corp., now Elf Atochem North America Inc., in Center City. A German suitor for Sterling Winthrop also came into the picture.

The dance is over, and Channel 10 is going home with NBC. Come next fall, Philadelphia channel surfers will find Seinfeld, Blossom and the Today show on Channel 10 (WCAU). Murphy Brown, 60 Minutes and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman will be on Channel 3 (KYW). Jay Leno and David Letterman will play musical channels, too. As part of a wide-ranging agreement announced yesterday, NBC and CBS will swap the stations they own in Philadelphia, the country's fourth-largest TV market, and Denver, the 21st.

Eighteen months ago, Consol Energy Inc. bought Dominion Resources Inc.'s Appalachian natural gas properties for $3.5 billion, giving the coal producer a big position in the Marcellus Shale natural gas field. At the time, Wall Street disapproved. Consol's shares fell more than 9 percent. Consol looks clever now. The Canonsburg, Pa., company announced Wednesday it would receive $593 million from Hess Corp. for a joint venture to explore and develop Consol's 200,000 acres of Utica Shale in Ohio, much of it acquired from Dominion.

A joint venture between two Philadelphia-area companies to supply water for hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale is returning a profit after a year in service, but growth has been dampened by a slowdown in drilling. Aqua-PVR Water Services L.L.C., formed by Aqua America Inc. and PVR Partners L.P., recently completed a third phase of building a pipeline that extends 56 miles from the Susquehanna River across Lycoming County into Tioga County to deliver water to shale-drilling operations.

Sunoco Inc.'s Philadelphia refinery, which was threatened with closure at the end of this month, will be reborn as an "energy hub. " The Carlyle Group, a Washington private-equity manager, announced plans Monday to operate the refinery with Sunoco as a joint venture called Philadelphia Energy Solutions. The venture will save 850 jobs at the refinery, the largest fuel-production plant in the northeastern United States, and may employ hundreds more if plans to expand production are realized.

Consol Energy Inc. announced Wednesday that it is entering into a joint venture with Hess Corp. to explore and develop Consol's 200,000 acres of Utica Shale in Ohio for natural gas. Consol will receive consideration of $593 million. The deal is the second big shale-gas transaction that Consol has announced in recent weeks. In August, the Canonsburg, Pa., company - best known as a coal producer - announced a $3.4 billion joint venture with Noble Energy Inc. to develop about 663,500 acres of Marcellus Shale leases in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Officials of the Pennsylvania Ballet and Milwaukee Ballet have signed an agreement that makes their marriage official. Papers uniting the two companies were officially endorsed on Friday, concluding negotiations that began shortly after the two organizations agreed on Jan. 29 to creation of a joint company that will begin performances in the 1987-88 season. The agreement provides for three entities: the two existing member companies and a new joint-venture company, not yet named.

Comcast Corp., flush with billions of dollars from sales of assets and bonds, rapidly accelerated its acquisition of NBCUniversal on Tuesday, saying it would pay $16.7 billion for the 49 percent of the entertainment, news and film conglomerate that it doesn't already own. The Philadelphia cable giant expects the deal to close within the next six weeks. The seller is General Electric Co., which sold Comcast 51 percent of NBCUniversal in 2011. Comcast and GE were expected to operate NBCUniversal as a joint venture until at least mid-2014, and Comcast could have continued the joint venture through 2018.

DX Imaging, a new joint venture of Xerox Corp. and Du Pont Co., plans to move to Uwchlan Township, Chester County, by early next year. The company, formed to develop color-printing and copying machines, expects to employ 200 people within a year in the former Exxon Building on Gordon Drive in Pickering Creek Industrial Park, James E. Shapiro, DX president and chief executive officer, said yesterday. Until this week, DX's parent companies have said only that they were "looking at" locating in the Philadelphia area and, specifically, in Chester County near other high-technology companies.