IN BRIEF (Page 15)

Growth to keep slowing

The Bank of Japan's new Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said growth will keep slowing as rising oil and commodity prices weigh on the world's second-largest economy.

"Higher energy and raw-materials costs are causing the economy to slow now," Shirakawa, 58, told reporters in Tokyo yesterday after his appointment was approved by parliament, ending the first leadership vacuum in more than 80 years.

New meeting

Alitalia SpA, whose takeover talks with Air France-KLM Group collapsed last week, will resume discussions with unions April 15 as the unprofitable airline seeks emergency funding.

The Rome-based carrier called a meeting with unions on April 15 at 3 pm, said a spokesman for Filt-Cgil, Alitalia's biggest union. The company said on Tuesday it had cash and short-term credit of 170 million euros at the end of March.

Tycoon raises stake

TUI AG, Europe's largest travel company and the owner of the Hapag-Lloyd shipping line, said Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov raised his stake in the company above 10 percent.

Mordashov and his related companies held 10.03 percent of the Hanover-based company's shares as of April 4, according to a TUI statement on the OTS newswire. Mordashov's S-Group holding previously disclosed a 5 percent stake.

Profit warning

UBS AG's 22 percent gain this month in Swiss trading may be unwarranted as profit estimates for the bank may disappoint and any breakup of the business would take as much as three years, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc said.

Jon Peace and Chintan Joshi, London-based analysts at Lehman, cut their share-price estimate for Switzerland's largest bank to 36 francs from 40 francs and maintained their "underweight" recommendation. UBS declined 50 centimes, or 1.4 percent, to 35.14 francs by 9:10 am in Zurich yesterday.

No procedural problem

Jerome Kerviel's unauthorized bets, which Societe Generale SA blamed for a record 4.9 billion-euro trading loss, haven't put the bank's oversight procedures in doubt, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Bouton said.

Bouton, speaking to the French parliament's finance committee in Paris yesterday, said the trader's bets were hidden, defeating the bank's controls.

Technip wins contract

Technip SA, Europe's second-largest oilfield-services provider, won a contract from Husky Energy Inc for work on the Canadian oil company's White Rose field off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The contract, worth about 190 million euros, is for the engineering, fabrication and installation of 23.7 kilometers of flexible flowlines and 5.4 kilometers of umbilicals for the offshore equipment, Technip said yesterday.

Bigger loss

Conergy AG, Germany's largest solar- power company, restated full-year earnings, saying the 2007 loss was wider than announced in a preliminary report as anticipated tax benefits did not take effect.

The net loss was 248 million euros, wider than the previous year's 1 million-euro loss. Sales rose 3.5 percent to 706 million euros, the Hamburg-based company announced.

Orders to slow

Airbus SAS, the world's largest commercial planemaker, forecast new orders will fall to 750 planes in 2008, the lowest level in four years, because of rising fuel and credit costs.

Orders will probably drop from a record 1,341 last year, Chief Operating Officer John Leahy said yesterday.

Agencies

(China Daily 04/10/2008 page15)