IN BRIEF (Page 15)

Little change

Aristocrat Leisure Ltd, the world's second-largest maker of slot machines, said profit will stall a second year amid "difficult" trading in Australia, Japan and North America. The stock slumped the most in almost four years.

Net income will be around A$240.1 million ($213 million) in the 12 months ended December 31, little changed from a year earlier, Sydney-based Aristocrat said yesterday. The forecast is 19 percent below the A$296.6 million average of eight analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

Full ownership sought

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's biggest retailer, will invest as much as 100 billion yen ($876 million) to buy the remaining 49 percent stake of Japan unit Seiyu Ltd it doesn't already own.

The offer of 140 yen for each ordinary share in Tokyo- based Seiyu is a 61 percent premium to the stock's closing price on Friday, Wal-Mart said in a statement yesterday. It is struggling to turn around Seiyu's performance in a nation where retail sales have fallen for nine of the past 11 months.

Unknown investor

An unnamed foreign investment company could buy a stake in Cie de Saint-Gobain SA alongside French investment firm Wendel, La Lettre de l'Expansion said.

Wendel said on September 26 it build a 6 percent stake in Saint Gobain. It could raise this level, according to the report in the French newspaper. The companies could in time seek to split up Saint Gobain, the report said, without citing anyone.

Windy purchase

Fersa Energias Renovables SA, a Spanish renewable-energy operator, will pay 251 million euros to buy wind power projects in Spain, India, Poland and France.

Fersa will purchase combined capacity of 570 megawatts with the transactions, the company said yesterday in a filing to regulators. Fersa will sell 64.9 million new shares to finance the transaction, the company said.

Rights issue planned

Carlsberg A/S is planning a rights issue valued at 30 billion Danish krone ($5.8 billion) to fund its proposed takeover bid for Scottish & Newcastle Plc, the Financial Times reported, without saying where it got its information.

Danske Bank and Nordea will initially underwrite an equity bridge facility, and a rights issue will be made later to back the plan by Carlsberg and Heineken NV to buy S&N in a deal valued at 7.1 billion pounds, the FT added.

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 10/23/2007 page15)