BNP Paribas sells Credit Lyonnais stake
Paris: BNP Paribas SA said on Monday that it has sold its 16.2 percent stake in Credit Lyonnais SA, ending any speculation that it might launch a last-minute counterbid for France's sixth biggest bank. BNP Paribas expects the sale would allow it to book a gain of nearly 100 million euros (US$118.6 million), the company said in a statement. The move ends a tussle for control of Credit Lyonnais that started in November when BNP Paribas surprised the French banking world with the purchase of a 10 percent stake in Credit Lyonnais put up for auction by the French government. Rival Credit Agricole responded by increasing its own stake in Credit Lyonnais, and finally the two banks reached an agreement on a merger shortly before Christmas.
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Old NZ strike jets, trainers may have intl buyers
Wellington: A private American company that trains fighter pilots is expected to buy the 17 Skyhawk strike jets that remain from the defunct combat wing of New Zealand's air force, an international consultancy firm said Monday. Advanced Training Systems International Ltd. of Arizona, which trains fighter pilots including some from the US Air Force, was expected to buy the fleet, said consultant Gareth Morgan of the firm Ernst & Young, which is handling the sale. New Zealand scrapped its air force's combat wing in late 2001 to concentrate its limited defence budget on building a modern army. Morgan also said there was a possible buyer for New Zealand's fleet of 17 Aermacchi jet trainers.
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Outsourced: Death in Silicon Valley
Washington: On a recent April afternoon in Silicon Valley, moments after he was told he had been laid off from his computer programming job at a Bank of America training centre, Kevin Flanagan stepped into the parking lot and shot himself dead.
Some of America's technology workers, who like Flanagan have also had to collect pink slips over the last several months, think they know why Flanagan took his life: Bank of America not only outsourced his job to India, but forced him to train Indian workers to do the job he had to give up. In the weeks since his death, the techies have used the incident as fuel to fire a campaign against outsourcing to India, an issue that now seems poised to become a major sticking point between the two countries. Several US states are already considering legislation to ban or limit outsourcing. Bank of America is one of several major US corporations – General Electric, Microsoft, Intel are among others - under scrutiny for outsourcing jobs to India. The Bank created what is called a "Global Delivery centre" in 2000 to identify projects that could be sent offshore.
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Hong Kong airport cuts landing fees
Hong Kong: The Airport Authority of Hong Kong, which manages one of the world's busiest airports, said on Sunday it would discount aircraft landing fees by up to 50 per cent over the next six months to win back passengers who have been scared off by the outbreak of the deadly SARS virus. We are setting the goal of recovering 80 per cent of our traffic by December of this year," authority chairman Victor Fung told Reuters in an interview. The reductions in landing fees come on the heels of the World Health Organisation's move on Friday to lift a warning against non-essential travel to Hong Kong and southern China that has dealt a blow to Hong Kong's fragile economic recovery. Fung said the cuts were part of a package of measures to restore the confidence of travellers and to reassure them that it was safe to take flights again.
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Merck licenses alcoholism drug to Japanese firm
Frankfurt: German drugmaker Merck KGaA said on Monday it had granted the Japanese rights to its alcohol dependence drug Campral to Nippon Shinyaku Co in exchange for royalty payments. Merck spokesman Hartmut Vennen said Merck would pay milestones to Shinyaku that were linked to regulatory approvals in Japan, but declined to comment on how much Merck would pay or how much it expected in royalties. The drug, which is also known as acamprosate, has been on the market for 20 years in Europe but received a non-approvable letter in the United States last year. Vennen said Merck would file a modified New Drug Application for the treatment with the US Food and Drug Administration by the end of the year. Merck shares were up 0.18 percent at 27.86 euros at 0753 GMT, outperforming the MDAX index.
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SK Global faces liquidation without bailout
Seoul: Creditors of SK Global Co, the troubled trading unit of South Korea's SK Group, intend to start moves to liquidate SK Global if no acceptable bailout plan is forthcoming by Tuesday, a source at a creditor bank said on Monday. SK Global was rocked by the unearthing of a $1.2 billion accounting fraud in March. The scandal sent shock waves through the financial markets and SK Group, the country's fourth-biggest conglomerate, came under pressure to help bail out the company. "We told the group to come up with revised offers by Tuesday," the source from a leading creditor told Reuters."If they do not come up with satisfactory offers by then, we'll have to move to liquidate SK Global," he added. He declined to be identified.
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