IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Retailer rises

Hennes & Mauritz AB, Europe's second-largest clothes retailer, said first-quarter profit rose 28 percent, beating analysts' estimates, because of store openings, online shopping and a declining dollar.

H&M shares rose as much as 4.7 percent, the most in almost two months. Net income in the three months through February climbed to 2.94 billion kronor ($493 million), or 3.55 kronor a share, from 2.3 billion kronor, or 2.78 kronor, a year earlier, the Stockholm-based retailer said

TDK tumbles

TDK Corp, the world's largest maker of magnetic heads that read data on hard disk drives, fell the most in seven months in Tokyo trading after the Nikkei newspaper said the company may miss its full-year earnings forecast because of the strong yen.

Tokyo-based TDK lost 9.4 percent to 5,790 yen at 9:50 am on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, declining the most since Aug 1.

Boost for Oerlikon

OC Oerlikon Corp AG, the world's largest maker of spinning machines, said annual profit rose 4.3 percent, driven by acquisitions and record demand for textile machinery in Asia.

Net income advanced to 319 million Swiss francs ($322 million) from 306 million francs, the Pfaeffikon, Switzerland-based company announced.

Delay mooted

Air France-KLM Group said it's willing to push back deadlines for an agreement to purchase Alitalia SpA, in order to allow talks with unions to continue.

"Air France-KLM said it is willing to alter some of the deadlines," Alitalia said in a statement.

Agencies

(China Daily 03/28/2008 page17)