IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Mall chief quits

Centro Properties Group, the Australian owner of 700 US shopping malls, said Chief Executive Officer Andrew Scott resigned and asked lenders to extend a Feb 15 deadline to refinance A$3.9 billion ($3.5 billion) of debt.

Glenn Rufrano, 57 and the head of Centro's US business, will replace Scott, the Melbourne-based company said yesterday in a statement. Centro fell 30 percent to a record in Sydney trading, valuing the company at A$502 million.

Profit forecast

ThyssenKrupp AG, Germany's largest steelmaker, may say first-quarter profit fell 25 percent after demand for stainless steel slowed in Europe.

Net income probably dropped to 482.5 million euros in the three months to Dec 31 from 641 million euros a year earlier, according to the median estimate of six analysts surveyed by e-mail and telephone by Bloomberg News last week. Dusseldorf-based ThyssenKrupp will publish its earnings at 7.30 am local time on Jan 18.

Market return

Tommy Hilfiger Corp, the clothier taken private by Apax Partners Worldwide LLP after its garments lost favor with teenagers, will return to the stock market by selling shares in an initial public offering in Amsterdam.

Apax and Tommy Hilfiger managers will sell shares in the offering, according to an e-mail sent to clients by Morgan Stanley, one of the IPO managers. Presentations to investors are scheduled to start on Jan 25, and bids for the stock will be taken up to Feb 4, it shows.

Plant closure

Nokia Oyj, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, plans to close its handset factory in Germany and cut about 2,300 jobs as the site "lacks competitiveness".

The factory in Bochum is scheduled to be closed in mid-2008, Espoo, Finland-based Nokia said yesterday in a statement. Production will be moved to more competitive plants in Europe, the company said without elaborating. It didn't disclose potential costs related to the shutdown.

Merrill investment

Merrill Lynch & Co, the US brokerage battered by losses from subprime mortgages, raised $6.6 billion by selling preferred shares to outside investors.

The Korean Investment Corp, Japan's Mizuho Financial Group Inc and the Kuwaiti Investment Authority will purchase the mandatory convertible stock, New York-based Merrill said in a statement yesterday. The investors will be passive, the company said.

Recession prediction

The US economy is probably in a recession or about to slide into it, former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The odds are "not overwhelming but they are marginally in that direction" Greenspan was quoted as saying.

Little change

Crude oil futures traded little changed near $94 a barrel as analysts forecast that crude inventories rose in the United States for the first time in nine weeks.

Crude oil for February delivery traded for $94.16, down 4 cents the New York Mercantile Exchange at 11:26 am London time on after falling as much as 65 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $93.55 a barrel.

Intel earnings

Intel Corp, the semiconductor maker poised to report its largest profit increase in 14 quarters, may find future gains harder to come by as global sales of personal computers slow.

Demand for PCs weakened last quarter, just as chip shipments increased the most in eight years, said Christopher Danely, a JPMorgan Securities Inc analyst in San Francisco. Growing inventories mean PC makers won't need to order as many processors, hurting earnings growth at Intel, he said.

Agencies

(China Daily 01/16/2008 page17)