Also . . .

* Federal antitrust enforcers are expected to announce this week stepped-up merger reviews of limited-liability corporations, known as LLCs, to ensure competition isn’t compromised. Currently LLCs, organizations that shield owners from corporate taxes and limits their personal liability, don’t have to report combinations under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act as corporations do.

* Banks’ syndicated loans to U.S. companies fell 25% in the third quarter from the same period in 1997, as companies slowed their refinancings because of higher prices. Banks arranged $225.6 billion of loans, compared with $300.3 billion in the year-ago quarter, according to Loan Pricing Corp.’s Gold Sheets report.

* Orders from U.S. firms for domestic and foreign-produced machine tools fell 16% to an estimated $456 million in July from a revised $543 million in that month, according to a joint report from the Assn. for Manufacturing Technology and the American Machine Tool Distributors Assn.

* Shamrock Capital Advisors Inc., which has links to Roy Disney’s Shamrock Holdings, offered to inject $106 million in cash to Brierley Investments Ltd. in return for a 20% stake in the New Zealand-based company and management control.