IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Production suspended

Porsche SE, maker of the 911 sports car, said production will be shut down at its main plant for at least two days after a gas explosion in the paint shop.

Two workers were treated at a hospital for injuries and then released following the 5 am incident, the Stuttgart, Germany-based carmaker said yesterday in a statement.

Grid fined

National Grid Plc, owner of the United Kingdom's power and natural-gas grids, was fined by the energy regulator for restricting the development of competition in the domestic gas-meter market.

The London-based company must pay 41.6 million pounds, the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets said in a statement distributed by the Regulatory News Service.

Job cuts

Gold Fields Ltd, Africa's second-biggest gold producer, plans to eliminate as many as 6,900 jobs, or 13 percent of its South African workforce, as the nation's utility fails to provide enough power to run the mines.

The reductions are the first by a South African mining company since Eskom Holdings Ltd said shortages will persist for the next four years.

Allco dives

Allco Finance Group Ltd plunged 63 percent in Sydney trading after the Australian asset manager said lenders may force it to repay A$1.15 billion ($1 billion) of debt in the next three months.

Allco has A$250 million due May 1 and a further A$900 million that it could be called on to repay within 90 days, Chief Executive Officer David Clarke said in a statement today. The company had A$591 million in cash on Dec 31.

House prices drop

UK house prices fell for a fifth month in February as banks curbed mortgages and buyers struggled to afford them, a report by Hometrack Ltd showed.

The average cost of a home in England and Wales fell by 0.2 percent to 174,400 pounds, the London-based research company said yesterday. House prices increased an annual 1.4 percent, the least since April 2006.

Sales decline likely

Home Depot Inc, the world's largest home-improvement retailer, today may report its first annual sales decline after the worst US housing slump in more than 25 years sapped demand for cabinets and appliances.

Home Depot may say that fourth-quarter profit tumbled 20 percent to $741 million, or 43 cents a share, according to the survey.

Airline advances

Malaysian Airline System Bhd, the nation's largest carrier, said fourth-quarter profit almost doubled on higher traffic, boosting annual earnings to a record.

Net income surged to 242 million ringgit ($75 million) in the three months ended Dec 31 from 122 million ringgit a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The Subang, Malaysia-based airline plans to pay a dividend of 2.5 sen a share, the first payment since 2005.

Recession expectations

The proportion of economists who forecast a US recession this year more than doubled in three months, to 45 percent, according to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics.

Of those, a majority expect the downturn to be "relatively muted", according to the poll of 49 professional forecasters taken Jan 25 to Feb 13.

Little change

Crude oil traded little changed amid tensions over the Iran nuclear issue and border clashes in Iraq that raised concerns that supplies from the two countries may be disrupted.

Crude oil for April delivery traded at $98.64 a barrel, down 17 cents, at 11:58 am London time on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It earlier advanced 89 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $99.70 a barrel in electronic trading.

Agencies

(China Daily 02/26/2008 page16)