IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Investment plans

Flat screen maker LG.Philips LCD Co Ltd said yesterday it would invest 3 trillion won ($3.27 billion) in 2008, three times 2007's capital expenditure, setting aside 2.5 trillion won to build a large-size screen plant.

The company said it expected its margin on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) to remain in the mid-thirties percent in the fourth quarter, from 35 percent in the July-September quarter.

Price cut

Sony Corp, the world's largest maker of video-game players, will cut the price of its PlayStation 3 console as much as 10 percent and introduce a new model in Japan to help compete with Nintendo Co's Wii player.

The company will cut the price of its 20-gigabyte and 60-gigabyte models by 5,000 yen ($43) to 44,980 yen and 54,980 yen respectively from October 17, according to a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday.

Air India IPO

State-owned Air India will likely unload 15 percent of its equity in an initial public offer (IPO) when its merger with domestic counterpart Indian Airlines is completed, a report said.

V. Thulasidas, chairman of the National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL), the airlines' new parent company, said the government would make the final decision on the size of the IPO.

Purchase opposed

Staff at Spiegel-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH voted against buying Pearson Plc's 50 percent stake in the Financial Times Deutschland, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

A purchase of the FT Deutschland stake would require the approval of Spiegel staff, who control 50.5 percent of the German media company, the Journal said.

Possible bid

A group of former executives of Iberia Lineas Aereas de Espana SA are in contact with investors over making a possible bid for the airline, Cinco Dias newspaper reported.

The former Iberia managers, who worked at the company in the 1990s when it was state-controlled, want to keep the airline independent and under Spanish ownership, the paper said, citing unnamed sources.

Svanberg surpassed

D. Carnegie & Co's new Chief Executive Officer Anders Onarheim earned 55 million kronor ($8.4 million) as head of the investment bank's Norwegian operations last year, the Dagens Industri newspaper reported.

Most of his income last year came from salary, dividends and bonus payments from Carnegie, the Swedish business daily reported, citing Onarheim. His pay surpasses that of Carl-Henric Svanberg, chief executive officer of Ericsson AB, the largest company on the Stockholm bourse, Dagens Industrie said.

Vonage surges

Vonage Holdings Corp, the Internet phone-service provider, had its biggest single-day advance since going public last year after it settled one of two patent suits that threatened its survival.

Vonage shares more than doubled. Sprint Nextel Corp, the third-largest US phone company, agreed to license more than 100 Internet telephone patents to Vonage, which will pay $80 million to end the case and use the technology.

Valuable find

Wega Mining ASA found gold and base metals valued at $1.9 billion at the J&L deposit in British Columbia, Canada.

The deposit contains 838,000 ounces of gold, 11.1 million ounces of silver, 214,000 tons of zinc and 133,000 tons of lead, the company's Merit Mining Corp unit said in a statement to the Oslo Stock Exchange. The field will start production in 2010, according to the statement.

Agencies-Bloomberg News

(China Daily 10/10/2007 page16)