IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Merrill staff probed

US regulators are investigating whether several current and former employees at Merrill Lynch & Co Inc improperly placed trades for the brokerage house's own account ahead of client orders, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

The report, quoting people familiar with the matter, said the US Securities and Exchange Commission would look into whether some employees improperly stepped in front of orders placed by mutual fund operator Fidelity Investments to gain an unfair advantage. A Merrill Lynch representative was not immediately available for comment.

UK inflation

Annual British factory gate inflation rose to a fresh 16-year high in December as food price inflation hit a record high and oil prices continued to climb, official data showed on Monday. The Office for National Statistics said output prices rose 0.5 percent on the month in December, taking the annual rate to 5 percent, the highest since August 1991.

Acquisition details

News and information groups Reuters Group Plc and Thomson Corp said they expect that Thomson's proposed acquisition of the British group will close early in the second quarter of 2008.

"While the regulatory review process continues, integration planning efforts associated with the acquisition are proceeding on course," the companies said in a statement yesterday.

Suez stake

French bank Credit Agricole said it would sell a 2.07 percent stake in utility Suez, which could raise over 1 billion euros to help shore up its capital position amid difficult market conditions.

France's biggest retail bank said it would place the shares in the market with institutional investors. The bank said it would sell 27,014,040 Suez shares. It will place an initial amount of 24,558,219 shares and there will then be an over-allotment option of further shares.

Shares sold

Citigroup sold 110 million shares or around 1 percent of charter capital of Russia's biggest oil firm Rosneft on behalf of a hedge fund raising $1 billion, a business daily reported yesterday.

Vedomosti business daily quoted unnamed managers at the Russian company as saying the shares had been sold at $9.17 each, which implies a 3 percent discount to the market price. Rosneft was not immediately available for comment.

No change

Brewer Scottish and Newcastle said its expectations for 2007 results were unchanged and repeated its rejection of a 7.6 billion pound bid from Carlsberg and Heineken.

Britain's biggest brewer added the bid failed to give a proper value to the Russia-based Baltic Beverages Holding (BBH) joint venture it runs with Carlsberg and urged the Danish brewer to give out more information on BBH's prospects.

Bid opens

Swiss Life opened its takeover bid for German investment adviser AWD on Monday, saying its $1.16 billion euro takeover offer would end on February 22.

The conditions of the bid, which Swiss Life announced in December, were unchanged. "The acceptance period starts with today's publication and ends on 22 February 2008," the group said yesterday.

Sears slips

Sears Holdings Corp said yesterday that overall US same-store sales at its namesake and Kmart stores fell 3.5 percent in the holiday period, hurt in part by weak sales of clothing, tools and seasonal products.

Same-store sales at Sears domestic stores fell 2.8 percent in the nine weeks that ended Jan 5, while those at Kmart fell 4.2 percent, the company said.

Agencies

(China Daily 01/15/2008 page17)