Business Notes

TAKEOVRS Sir James Buys a Crown

Anglo-French Millionaire Sir James Goldsmith jets frequently between London, where he controls Cavenham holding company, Paris, where he owns the magazine L'Express, and New York City, where he watches over his Grand Union grocery-store chain. Goldsmith, 52, last week added another stop to his travels: San Francisco. He emerged victorious after an eight-month battle for Crown Zellerbach, the $3 billion California-based paper and forestry giant, and was named chairman of the board. Goldsmith now controls 51.3% of Crown's 27.4 million outstanding shares, and his investment partnership, General Oriental Securities, will get six of eleven seats on the board of directors.

Goldsmith says he went after Crown Zellerbach for its almost 2 million acres of timberland holdings. Said he: "It's a huge gamble, but in the long run the price of timber will rise." Some industry observers think that he may restructure the company, keeping the forest holdings but selling off pulp and paper mills. In 1982 Goldsmith purchased Diamond International, another timber-products company, and then sold off pulp, paper and other divisions for an estimated $500 million gain. SCANDALS $10 Million in Back Taxes

Edward Dunbar seemed to have achieved the American dream. In the mid-1970s, the Castro Valley, Calif., resident started Dunbar Oil with a single discount gas station. When the oil crisis hit, business boomed, and Dunbar Oil grew into a chain of 34 stations strung around San Francisco Bay. By 1981 the company was earning more than $33 million a year.

The dream came to an abrupt halt last week. Dunbar, 42, was sentenced to five years in prison for tax fraud, having understated his earnings by some $32 million over a three-year period. That makes Dunbar the biggest tax cheat in IRS history. Judge Marilyn Hall Patel also placed him on five years' probation after he finishes his sentence and ordered him to pay the IRS what he owes in back taxes--an estimated $10 million--plus interest.

When Dunbar was on the way up, he squandered his wealth and made loans to friends who never paid him back. The tax scam unraveled when Evelyn Alga, an assistant in the office of Dunbar's tax accountant, called the IRS and offered evidence implicating not only Dunbar but the accountant. The IRS paid Alga $41,300 for her tip. MEXICO Containing the Debt Crisis

Mexican officials last week were once again struggling to bring their runaway economy under control. The government slashed the value of the controlled peso, which is used for the purchase of imports, by 20% in an effort to improve the country's trade balance. The new rate: 279 to the dollar. President Miguel de la Madrid and his Cabinet accepted 10% salary cuts, and a host of lower-level officials lost their jobs.

Mexico, though, enjoyed at least one bit of good economic news last week. IBM announced that it would build a microcomputer plant near Guadalajara. The facility will be wholly owned by the American company, marking the first time Mexico has permitted a foreign high-tech firm to have 100% control of a local subsidiary. A 1973 law limits foreign ownership to 49%. In January, Mexico rejected IBM's proposal to build the plant, but the company made several concessions to get the deal. It agreed to invest $91 million over five years, instead of the $6.6 million initially planned. The firm also said that it would export 92% of the factory's production, thus easing fears among Mexican computer companies that IBM would drive them out of business. COMPUTERS Enter Amiga, Stage Center

At New York City's Lincoln Center last week, there were Brie and French bread, sushi and raw clams, and a black-tie audience that watched Pop Artist Andy Warhol sketch Rock Star Deborah Harry on a computer. Commodore International was introducing its Amiga computer (base price: $1,295), which the firm hopes will reverse last quarter's $20.8 million loss.

A new personal computer seems like a risky venture, since the home market is almost comatose. Apple recently closed three of its six factories and laid off 1,200 of its 5,800 employees. Some retail chains say they will not carry the Amiga because they are sitting on too many unsold IBM or Apple machines or are waiting to see if the Amiga is successful.

Commodore officials insist that the Amiga is a technological marvel, rivaling in quality professional graphics systems (see COMPUTERS). The machine has a color palette of 4,096 hues, animation abilities that make soccer balls bounce, and a keyboard that sounds like a banjo one minute and an electric guitar the next. Computer buffs are impressed, but the general public seems skeptical about all home machines. WINE Guaranteed Not to Freeze

Unscrupulous winemakers for centuries have added all sorts of strange ingredients to their products in attempts to increase their profits. Now some Austrian vintners have found a method for doctoring plonk that is not only unorthodox but potentially lethal. Last week the Austrian government announced it had impounded more than 1 million gal. of white wine that had been adulterated with diethylene glycol, a chemical used in making aircraft antifreeze that can be fatal if swallowed.

Most of the contaminated wine is from the province of Burgenland. The scheme first came to light after health authorities, acting on anonymous tips, began testing wine for the chemical. By April they were sure enough of their results to reveal them, but public awareness of the scandal came only in early July, when the West German government announced that 78,000 gal. of imported Austrian wine contained the chemical.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has ordered that incoming Austrian wine, and any of the wine already in the U.S., not be shipped to retailers until tested by an approved, independent U.S. laboratory. Says the agency's Tom Hill: "What we are saying is, 'Don't drink any Austrian wines, period.' "