Sanyo Electric chairwoman resigns
The chairwoman Tomoyo Nonaka has resigned from Sanyo Electric. The company is investigating whether it should revise past earnings statements due to improper accounting procedures.

Earlier this year Sanyo was under investigation by Japan's Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission for past accounting, and the company is dealing with several recalls of its lithium-ion batteries used in mobile phones and laptop PCs.

Sanyo Electric has issued a press release that said Nonaka had resigned for "personal reasons."

Nonaka assumed her post in 2005 and ran Sanyo along with President Toshimasa Iue, the grandson of the company's founder who has been unwilling to take major reform steps such as breaking up the company.

However the company recovered under Nonaka's guidance. As prices of its consumer products fell and its semiconductor operations struggled, Sanyo posted a group net loss of Y205.56 billion for the year through March 2006.

It sees a loss of Y50 billion this year, and its operating profit shot up 31 pc in the October-December quarter versus a year earlier.

Goldman Sachs, Daiwa Securites Group Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group bailed out Sanyo last year and also obtained preferred shares, which can give them managerial control of the company. The companies also hold five of Sanyo's nine board seats.
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ABN Amro, Barclays in talks for mega merger
London: ABN AMRO and British bank Barclays are in talks for a possible $160 billion merger that could form Europe's biggest financial services deal.

The two banks said the talks were "exploratory."

Barclays, Britain's third biggest bank, has a big presence in Europe and Africa. ABN, the Netherlands' biggest bank, also owns large retail banks in the United States, Brazil and Italy.

Several other banks, including Dutch rival ING Spain's BBVA (BBVA.MC and France's BNP Paribas have expressed interest -- directly or through advisers -- in either a full merger with ABN AMRO or buying some of its large non-Dutch businesses.
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