IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Investors snap up stock

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said shareholders bought 95.1 percent, or 11.6 billion pounds, of stock in the biggest European share sale and the first by a UK bank since the credit-market seizure.

Investors took up 5.8 billion new shares at 200 pence apiece, acquiring 11 new shares for every 18 held, the Edinburgh-based company said in a statement yesterday. Underwriters Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG will seek buyers for the remaining 299.4 million shares, RBS said.

Share sale?

Barclays Plc, the United Kingdom's fourth-biggest bank by market value, may sell shares to replenish capital depleted by asset writedowns, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

The fund-raising would bolster the London-based company's so-called Tier 1 capital ratio, which trails Edinburgh-based HBOS Plc and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

Debt rises

South Korea's household debt rose to a record last quarter as consumers borrowed more to buy homes and settle credit-card bills.

Household credit, the sum of loans and credit card installments, surged 9.2 percent to 640.5 trillion won ($623 billion) in the first quarter from a year earlier, the Bank of Korea said in Seoul yesterday.

Stable margin expected

Hermes International SCA, the French maker of Birkin handbags, expects a stable operating margin this year, Investir reported, citing an interview with Chief Executive Officer Patrick Thomas.

The company is cutting costs and increasing prices by 6 percent in the United States and 8 percent in Japan to compensate for exchange rates, the weekly cited Thomas as saying.

Telkom profit falls

Telkom South Africa Ltd, the phone company that's in talks to sell itself, said full-year profit fell 7.7 percent as rising costs offset gains at 50 percent-owned mobile operator Vodacom Group Ltd.

Net income dropped to 8 billion rand ($1.02 million) in the year to March 31, Pretoria, South Africa-based Telkom said in a statement to the Johannesburg stock exchange yesterday.

Purchase plans

Willis Group Holdings Ltd, the world's third-largest insurance broker, plans to buy Hilb Rogal and Hobbs Co for $1.7 billion in cash and stock to expand in the United States and take on its two biggest rivals in their home market.

Willis valued the deal at $2.1 billion, including $46 a share in cash and stock plus $400 million in debt, according to a statement from the London-based company.

Deal in pipeline

India's Reliance Communications and South Africa's MTN have agreed "broad contours" of a deal to create a global telecoms powerhouse but are still working out share swap details, a report said yesterday.

Under a deal, RCom would become the largest single shareholder in MTN and the South African giant would be the biggest holding company of the Indian telecoms firm, India's leading financial daily the Economic Times said.

Stateside expansion

German discount chain Lidl plans to expand into the United States and Switzerland, the chief executive of its parent company Schwarz Gruppe, Klaus Gehrig, said in an interview published yesterday.

"We are now preparing to enter the market," Gehrig told German newsweekly Focus. Lidl, Germany's second biggest discounter after Aldi, aims to establish a US foothold by 2012 while it builds up its European business, Gehrig said.

Agencies

(China Daily 06/10/2008 page16)