IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Takeover talks

British mortgage bank Alliance & Leicester held tentative takeover talks with Spain's Santander early last month, the Daily Telegraph reported on Tuesday without citing any sources.

The newspaper said the talks faltered after the parties failed to agree a price, and that they were understood to no longer be in active discussions. "We don't comment on market speculation," an A&L spokesman said. Santander, the euro zone's biggest bank, could not be reached for comment.

Qatar conversion

Qatar's stock market could be converted into a company and sell shares to the public, Doha-based daily the Peninsula reported yesterday.

Regulations to allow the Doha Securities Market to become a company wholly owned by the government were in process, the newspaper said. "The law allows the minister to offer part of the government shareholding in the company to the public and list it," a source was quoted as saying.

Angolan contract

Oil services firm Technip said yesterday it had won a $1.16 billion contract to develop

Total's Pazflor oilfield in Angola.

Technip leads a consortium with Acergy, which won a contract worth a total $1.86 billion to develop the field located offshore Angola at water depths reaching 1,200 meters. Technip said its share of the deal was $1.16 billion.

Share issue

Dutch specialist market maker Van der Moolen Holding said yesterday it has issued 1.176 million shares as part of a settlement of the earn-out agreement on its acquisition of Curvalue.

"The amount of the earn-out payment is based on the profitability of Curvalue in 2006 relative to pre-established profit targets," Van der Moolen said in a statement.

Airport stake acquired

Concessions and construction group Vinci has bought 3.3 percent of French state-controlled airports operator Aeroports de Paris, La Tribune reported yesterday.

The shares changed hands in a block trade on December 28, according to the newspaper, which did not cite sources. Vinci was not immediately available for comment.

Malaysian moves

AT&T Inc, the biggest US phone company, wants to buy an unspecified stake in the mobile arm of state-controlled phone firm Telekom Malaysia, a Malaysian newspaper reported yesterday.

Telekom Malaysia is spinning off its mobile business into a separately listed firm, TM International. Telekom declined to comment on the report.

Sales boost

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, maker of half the cars sold in the country, reported a 9.7 percent increase in sales last month, helped by exports.

The automaker sold 62,515 cars, vans and sport-utility vehicles last month in India and overseas compared with 56,985 a year earlier, it said.

Otto buyout

Michael Otto, majority owner of Otto Group, bought out the remaining investor in the German mail-order retailer for about 1 billion euros, Financial Times Deutschland said, without saying where it got the information.

Otto and his family bought the 25 percent stake in Hamburg- based Otto Gruppe owned by German media company WAZ Gruppe, the newspaper reported.

Discharge unlikely

The UK economy faces its worst outlook since the dot-com bubble burst, the Financial Times said, citing its annual survey of 55 leading economists.

Nearly 90 percent think public finances are not in good order, lowering the opportunity for tax cuts or increases in public expenditure, and the third most mentioned risk to the economy is inflation, limiting the ability of the Bank of England to cut interest rates.

Agencies

(China Daily 01/03/2008 page16)