IN BRIEF (Page 16)

'No talks'

Valeo SA, Europe's third-largest car parts maker, said it's not in talks to sell a controlling stake to Hinduja Group, rejecting a report in India's Business Standard newspaper.

Valeo traded up 71 cents, or 2.9 percent, at 25.27 euros as of 1:36 pm in Paris, paring gains of 4.4 percent. The Business Standard, citing an unidentified person, said Mumbai-based Hinduja discussed purchasing 51 percent of Valeo in a meeting last week.

Soybean surge

US farmers will plant 18 percent more acres with soybeans this year, more than expected, after price gains made the oilseed more profitable than corn, the Department of Agriculture said.

Growers will seed 74.793 million acres with soybeans, up from 63.631 million last year, after prices rose 67 percent in the past year, partly because of increased demand and reduced supplies, the USDA said yesterday in a report.

Savings expected

Rexel SA, the world's biggest distributor of electrical equipment, said its purchase of Dutch rival Hagemeyer will generate 50 million euros in annual savings, the top end of its forecast range.

Cost benefits, mostly arising from procurement and improved distribution, will equal 1.5 percent of revenue from retained units by 2011, the Paris-based company said yesterday in a statement.

Polish investment

Ford Motor Co, the world's third-largest automaker, will invest 94 million euros in Poland to set up production of its new Ka model using Fiat SpA's factory in the southern town of Tychy.

The American carmaker, represented in Poland by German unit Ford-Werke GmbH, will work with more than 25 Polish suppliers to produce about 120,000 units a year, Poland's Economy Ministry said in a statement.

Airline drops

Air Berlin Plc, Europe's third-biggest discount airline, dropped the most in German trading since the company's May 2006 initial public offering after the carrier cut its forecast for this year because of fuel costs.

Earnings before interest and taxes will total 73 million euros to 120 million euros in 2008, the airline said in a slide presentation at a press conference held in Berlin yesterday.

Bid declined

Telkom South Africa Ltd, Africa's biggest fixed-line phone company, has declined Oger Telecom's offer to buy a stake and will invest in a new network.

Oger's bid wasn't in the interests of shareholders, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement to the Stock Exchange News Service in Johannesburg yesterday. Oger is a Dubai-based subsidiary of Saudi Oger Ltd, a Saudi Arabian construction company founded by former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Falling prices

UK house prices fell for a sixth month in March as banks curtailed lending and consumers lost confidence in the property market, Hometrack Ltd said.

The average cost of a home in England and Wales declined 0.2 percent to 174,100 pounds, the London-based research company said yesterday. The annual rate of growth slipped to 0.4 percent, the least in two years.

ECB lends funds

The European Central Bank lent banks an extra 15 billion euros in overnight funds on the last day of the financial quarter yesterday.

Banks would have snapped up over twice the amount allotted, with 25 banks bidding for 30.72 billion euros, with bids ranging from the minimum 4 percent rate up to 4.20 percent, the ECB announced.

Agencies

(China Daily 04/01/2008 page16)