IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Tata snaps up auto brands

Ford Motor Co, the world's third-largest automaker, agreed to sell Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata Motors Ltd for less than half what it paid for the two brands as demand for the luxury vehicles drops.

Tata, India's biggest truckmaker, will pay $2.3 billion, while Ford will pay about $600 million at closing to the Jaguar Land Rover pension funds, the companies said yesterday.

Estimate reduced

Citigroup Inc, the biggest US bank by assets, will probably post an annual loss in 2008 on further asset writedowns, Oppenheimer & Co analyst Meredith Whitney said in a note to investors.

Whitney cut her full-year estimate to a loss of 15 cents a share from a profit of 75 cents to reflect potential first- quarter writedowns on leveraged loans and collateralized debt obligations of $13.1 billion.

Confidence rises

German business confidence unexpectedly rose for a third month in March, suggesting Europe's largest economy is coping with near-record oil prices, a surging euro, and a global credit squeeze.

The Munich-based Ifo institute said its business climate index, based on a survey of 7,000 executives, increased to 104.8 from 104.1 in February.

UK store slides

Debenhams Plc, the second-largest UK department-store company, fell the most in more than two months in London trading after Merrill Lynch & Co's private-equity division sold a stake at a discount to yesterday's price.

The bank's brokerage unit managed the sale of 47.3 million shares at 60 pence each, according to details of the sale e-mailed by Merrill to clients and obtained by Bloomberg News. The price was 16 percent less than Tuesday's close of 71.5 pence.

Agencies

(China Daily 03/27/2008 page17)