IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Financier's donation

Wall Street financier Stephen Schwarzman will give $100 million to the New York Public Library to start a $1 billion expansion, the New York Times reported, citing Schwarzman and the library's president.

The donation by Schwarzman, who made his money as chief executive officer of buyout firm Blackstone Group LP, is among the largest to any cultural organization in New York, the paper said.

Drugs purchase

Bayer AG, Germany's biggest drugmaker, agreed to buy the over-the-counter medicines unit from Sagmel Inc to expand in Eastern Europe.

Financial details of the transaction, which is expected to close later this year, will remain confidential, Leverkusen-based Bayer said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

Rights offer

Societe Generale SA, France's second-largest bank, raised 5.54 billion euros in a rights offer to replenish capital depleted after trading losses and writedowns.

Investors requested 1.84 times more shares than the bank offered for sale, Societe Generale said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The new shares were sold for 47.50 euros each.

TI slumps

Texas Instruments Inc, the second-biggest maker of chips that run mobile phones, fell 3.5 percent in German trading after cutting sales and profit forecasts because of slowing handset demand.

Texas Instruments fell $1.05 to the equivalent of $28.60 at 9:11 am in Frankfurt from the close of $29.65 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. The company predicted sales of as little as $3.21 billion, trailing a January forecast for at least $3.27 billion.

Agencies

(China Daily 03/12/2008 page17)