IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Profit plans

ANZ Banking Group Ltd plans to double its annual profit to 8 billion Australian dollars (US$6.9 billion) in five years and expand its Asian operations to account for a fifth of its group earnings, it said yesterday.

Australia's fourth-biggest bank by market value also said it expected a resilient Australian economy to help it generate higher earnings in fiscal 2008 - an announcement that sent its shares climbing yesterday.

New appointment

Citigroup Inc named Don Callahan as chief administrative officer Monday, after he served for several months in the same job at Citi's investment bank and alternative investment group.

Callahan once headed up marketing at Morgan Stanley, the brokerage where Citi's newly named chief executive Vikram Pandit worked for more than 20 years before starting a hedge fund. Earlier this year, that fund was bought by Citi.

Tiger's order

Tiger Airways Pte, the budget carrier partly owned by Singapore Airlines Ltd, ordered 20 single-aisle planes from Airbus SAS as it sets up a base in South Korea, and expands in Australia, Malaysia and India.

Tiger Air is converting options for A320 planes, valued at $1.3 billion, that were part of an order pledged in June, Chief Executive Officer Tony Davis said yesterday

Foreign production

Skoda Auto AS plans to double car production outside the Czech Republic next year, Hospodarske Noviny reported.

Skoda, the Czech unit of Volkswagen AG, plans to make nearly 130,000 cars at its non-Czech plants in 2008 from 63,000 this year, the newspaper reported, citing Chief Executive Officer Reinhard Jung. The carmaker wants to boost production to 1 million cars a year by 2013, the newspaper reported.

Gazprom forecast

OAO Gazprom expects revenue to rise 27 percent next year to $117 billion under a "conservative" draft budget, Kommersant reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the matter.

That forecast applies if natural gas prices average $281 per 1,000 cubic meters and crude oil averages $61 a barrel, the Moscow-based newspaper said.

Bin Laden wins contract

Jabal Omar Development Co, a real-estate developer that builds housing for pilgrims in Mecca, awarded an 11 billion-riyal ($2.9 billion) construction contract to the Bin Laden Group and Saudi Oger Ltd.

The two companies will develop the city centre of Mecca by building a shopping mall, 39 residential towers and parking lots, Jabal Omar said in a statement posted on the website of the Saudi bourse yesterday.

Danisco jumps

Danisco A/S, Scandinavia's biggest food-ingredients maker, jumped the most in 11 weeks in Copenhagen trading after fiscal second-quarter earnings gained more than expected and it raised a profit forecast.

Net income climbed to 317 million Danish kroner ($61 million) in the three months ended October 31, from 215 million kroner a year earlier, the Copenhagen-based company said today in a statement. That's more than the 235 million-kroner median forecast of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Equity sale

Banco Bradesco SA, Brazil's second-biggest non-state bank, plans to raise as much as 1.2 billion reais ($661 million) for expansion in a sale of new equity to existing shareholders.

Bradesco, based in Osasco, Sao Paulo, plans to issue 27.9 million more shares, the bank said in a regulatory filing. Each share will be sold for 43 reais. The bank will use the proceeds to expand its lending operations and to invest in technology.

Agencies-Bloomberg News

(China Daily 12/19/2007 page16)