IN BRIEF (Page 16)

Bid plans

Wipro Ltd, India's third-largest software provider, is bidding for 12 contracts worth a total of at least $1.2 billion to help it meet a goal of becoming one of the industry's 10 largest companies.

Wipro, based in Bangalore, formed a "Global Programs Group" to target such orders, Girish Paranjpe and Suresh Vaswani, the joint chief executive officers of Wipro's information technology business, said.

IPO warning

Deutsche Bahn AG's initial public offering may be threatened by possible violations of European Union law, the Financial Times Deutschland reported, citing Juergen Basedow, head of the Bonn-based Monopolies Commission.

Supplying revenue from the share sale to the DB Mobility and Logistics division would equate to government aid, the newspaper said. This money should flow to the country's Finance Ministry or Deutsche Bahn's holding company, FTD reported, citing Basedow.

Sony tightlipped

Sony Corp, the world's second- largest maker of consumer electronics, declined to confirm or deny a Financial Times report that Bertelsmann AG, is seeking to sell its 50 percent stake in their music venture, Sony BMG, to the Japanese company for as much as $1.5 billion.

The companies could reach an agreement during the summer even as differences persist over price, the newspaper said on its website, citing three unidentified people familiar with the matter. Shusuke Kanai, a Sony spokesman in Tokyo, said he was unable to comment on the report.

Share sale

Barloworld Ltd, the world's largest forklift dealer, plans to sell 10 percent of the company to black investors in a deal worth 2.4 billion rand ($300 million).

The sale gives black investors a 29 percent stake in Barloworld, the Johannesburg-based company said yesterday in a statement to the city's stock exchange.

CeWe buyback

CeWe Color Holding AG, Europe's largest independent photograph developer, said it will commence a stock buyback next week after gaining authorization from investors last month to repurchase as many as 438,392 shares.

The shares will be acquired through Norddeutsche Landesbank, the Oldenburg, Germany based company said today in a statement on the DGAP newswire. The buyback program will start June 16 and end on Nov 29 next year, the statement shows.

Surprise cuts

Australia unexpectedly lost jobs in May, ending a record 18 months of gains and sending the nation's currency lower on speculation the central bank may not raise interest rates again.

Companies cut 19,700 workers after adding a revised 37,500 in April, the statistics bureau said in Sydney yesterday. The jobless rate held at 4.3 percent.

Carphone hammered

Europe's biggest independent mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse is cautious about the year ahead due to falling broadband demand, it said yesterday, hammering its shares which initially fell 18 percent.

Carphone said the year had started well for its mobile retail business, with mobile connections in the first 10 weeks up 12 percent year on year, compared with its growth target of 8 to 10 percent.

Help urged

A top Ford Motor Co executive urged the US government to make a greater commitment to the development of plug-in hybrids, warning that the country was falling behind in developing the technology critical to the advanced vehicles.

Mark Fields, Ford's President of the Americas, said at a conference on plug-in hybrids that bold incentives are needed to speed up the development of advanced batteries that are key to the vehicles.

Agencies

(China Daily 06/13/2008 page16)