Other news

Job cuts

Merrill Lynch & Co, the securities firm that bought subprime mortgage lender First Franklin Financial Corp nine months ago for $1.3 billion, is cutting jobs at the unit as the US home-loan market swoons.

Merrill has reduced staffing "to be in line with current business requirements", spokesman Bill Halldin said yesterday. Employees of the San Jose, California-based First Franklin were informed last week, he said.

'No recession'

The US economy will avoid a recession and a "psychology of fear" in equity markets has caused some share prices to fall too much, investor Laszlo Birinyi said.

"Good, solid companies which have nothing to do with finance, which are really immune from all these other issues, are being punished just as severely as stocks which are really tied to the issues," said Birinyi, who helps manage about $600 million as president of Birinyi Associates Inc in Westport, Connecticut.

Agrana low

Agrana Beteiligungs AG, seeking to be Austria's biggest ethanol producer, fell to a 19-month low in Vienna trading after delaying the start of a plant because of surging prices for grains.

The company probably won't start production until spring 2008, instead of October as previously scheduled, because of wheat and corn costs, Vienna-based Agrana said in a statement released yesterday.

New carrier

Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe's second-largest airline, and Deutsche Post AG obtained German regulatory approval to create a cargo carrier as the companies expand on earlier cooperation.

Plans by the Lufthansa Cargo division and Deutsche Post's DHL express-delivery unit to set up a "joint airline for freight flights" received antitrust clearance on September 12, the Bonn-based Federal Cartel Office said on its website.

No delay

Arcandor AG, Germany's largest department-store chain, said a planned property sale is on schedule for the end of this month, denying a report in Financial Times Deutschland that market turbulence may delay the transaction.

Arcandor, which raised 3.7 billion euros in March 2006 by transferring most of its real estate to a venture with Goldman Sachs Group Inc, said the sale of its remaining 49 percent stake in the venture will be finalized shortly.

Business bought

Cie Financiere Richemont AG, the world's second-largest luxury-goods maker, agreed to buy the watch-component business of Manufacture Roger Dubuis SA as orders for timepieces outstrip supply.

Richemont also plans to expand production capacity at Roger Dubuis's production site in Meyrin, according to a statement released yesterday by the Geneva-based company. Richemont will add 200 employees through the purchase.

Supermarket profits

X5 Retail Group NV, Russia's largest supermarket chain, said gross profit climbed 53 percent in the first half on new stores and higher spending per customer.

Gross profit climbed to $617 million in January through June, Moscow-based X-5 said in a statement yesterday, without giving net income or comparative figures. Sales jumped 49 percent to $2.35 billion.

Employee remanded

D. Carnegie & Co, the Nordic region's biggest publicly traded investment bank, said an employee was remanded into custody on suspicion of insider trading.

The unidentified man had been detained on September 5 was remanded into custody on September 15, Andreas Koch, a spokesman for the Stockholm-based company, said by telephone yesterday.

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 09/18/2007 page16)