Biz people

Spinetta may stay at the helm

Jean-Cyril Spinetta, chairman and chief executive officer of Air France-KLM, may remain at the head of Europe's biggest airline by revenue through 2013, he told La Tribune.

Spinetta (below) said as long as he continues to enjoy the job he could stay on as chief beyond the end of his term, which expires in 2010, until he turns 70 in 2013, the report said.

Spinetta, who led Air France's purchase of KLM in 2004, has been at the head of the airline for 10 years.

Sage 'could be takeover target'

Sage Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Paul Walker said there is a "definite possibility" the British accounting-software maker may become a takeover target, Handelsblatt reported, citing an interview with Walker.

Sage is interested in making acquisitions in Germany, especially in the area of software for clinics and doctors, the German newspaper citing Walker as saying. Sage, based in Newcastle, last year bought Emdeon Practice Services for almost 300 million pounds, Handelsblatt said.

BP results set to be 'dreadful'

UK energy giant BP's third-quarter revenues are set to be "dreadful", the company's chief executive Tony Hayward told a meeting of BP employees in Houston, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

Citing a summary of the meeting put together by a BP manager and sent to colleagues that it had obtained, the business daily said that Hayward (right) told BP workers that the company's financial performance was at its worst since 1992-93.

The summary, under the heading "BP Confidential," noted that Hayward added that the energy company's fourth-quarter revenues would be an improvement on the previous three-month period because of an additional 250,000 barrels of oil per day in extra production as various projects start operating.

Hayward, who took over as chief executive in May, reportedly blamed BP's underperformance on missing revenues from its Texas City and Whiting refineries in the US.

BP has yet to recover from the fallout of the Texas City refinery explosion in 2005, which killed 15 people and raised doubts about safety across the group's US facilities.

A BP spokes-woman declined to comment on the report when contacted by AFP.

(China Daily 09/26/2007 page16)