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Corporate America brush off for China - Maytag and Unocal accept home bids
Beijing: China's attempts to buy into corporate America were rebuffed as US rivals scuppered two major takeover deals. Chinese white goods maker Haier, decided to drop its $16-a-share offer for Maytag after being trumped by a $17-a-share offer from Whirlpool. Whirlpool, the market leader in the sector, entered the race on Sunday.

Meanwhile Unocal, which has been offered $18.2billion in cash by Chinese state oil company CNOOC, decided that it preferred a revised $17.1billion offer from Chevron.

Unocal's board voted to recommend the Chevron offer to shareholders yesterday.

China's bidding war for US companies has whipped up a political storm in America, with senators demanding that the government halt the sale of Unocal to CNOOC to safeguard national security.

Unocal's board favoured the lower offer from Chevron, which is made up of 40 per cent cash and 60 per cent shares, possibly to avoid political uncertainty.

The final say will go to shareholders on August 10, but CNOOC said yesterday it was still in the fight. "Our offer, being full cash, is superior to Chevron's and we have not much else to say except that the offer still stands," a spokesman said.

If both bids fail, there may well be a backlash in China, which has used state media to attack the hostile response to CNOOC as a case of the US failing to practise what it preaches about fair trade.

Last week, China announced plans to ban foreign firms taking controlling stakes in its steel firms, on top of its current rules protecting key state-owned industries - such as oil firms.
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China's GDP up 9.5 per cent for H1
Beijing: China's economy expanded 9.5 per cent in the first half of the year, the state-owned Xinhua media group said Wednesday.

The National Bureau of Statistics also reported second quarter GDP was up 9.5 per cent, year-on-year, following a 9.4 per cent rise in the first quarter.

This growth rate is consistent with the average rate over the past 27 years, which has been around 9.4 percent, a NBS spokesman said.

Retail sales in the first half increased by 13.2 per cent, while consumer prices were up 2.3 per cent, far less than last year's 3.9 per cent increase.

At the same time, exports continued to expand in the first half of 2005, up 32.7 percent to $342.3 billion, with China's global trade surplus widening to $39.6 billion.
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IBM reorganising its services division
New York: New York-based International Business Machines is putting its services unit through management reorganization based on different cost structures and business models for high-end consulting and mainstream technology outsourcing, the New York Times said Wednesday.

In the traditional side of services, IBM will have to compete against low-cost Indian outsourcing companies like Wipro Technologies, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services.

IBM's services business, which includes everything from call centres to advanced scientific research, now accounts for about half the company's $90 billion in yearly revenue and more than half of its 310,000 employees worldwide.

The change marks IBM's effort to compete aggressively on both sides of the services market: high-end business consulting and running data centers for corporate customers, the newspaper said.
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Counterfeit euro bills flood Europe
Munich: Fake 50-euro bills are proliferating, hurting European businesses within the eurozone, German paper Deutsche Welle said Wednesday.

Last year, European authorities pulled 594,000 counterfeit euro bills out of circulation, inside and outside Europe. That meant a loss of 34.4 million euros.

Europol says 6,000 more fake notes have been confiscated in the first half of this year than were confiscated in the second half of 2004.

Until now, most retailers used ultra-violet lights to spot fake bills. The German retailing association HDE is now urging retailers to buy more expensive screening devices that are more effective.

Almost all the big businesses have such boxes, but smaller retailers, are proving to be a problem.
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Mobiles sales to reach a billion
Amsterdam: Mobile phone sales will exceed one billion handsets per year by 2009 when they will become the world's most common consumer electronics device with 2.6 billion users, technology analyst firm Gartner has said.

Analyst group Gartner predicts that around 1.04 billion mobile phones will be sold in 2009, up from an upwardly revised estimate of 779 million this year and 674 million handsets in 2004, research group Gartner said.

"The mobile phone is the most prolific consumer device on the planet," Gartner analyst Ben Wood said. By comparison, every year around 200 million PCs and 200 million TVs are being sold.

The Asia Pacific region is seen as becoming even more important, with one out of every three mobile phones sold in the area in 2009, up from one in four this year.

Vendors including Finland's Nokia, US-based Motorola and Samsung Electronics from South Korea will generate combined revenues of $US1.7 billion ($2.24 billion) in 2009.

The average price per mobile phone will slip to $US161 in 2009 from $US174 in 2004, the study said, even though the handsets will have more memory and better screens and cameras than current models.

"Profit margins are going to get squeezed dramatically both in mature and emerging markets. It will drive many of the smaller players out of business," Mr Wood said.

The price differences will be huge, with basic handsets for emerging markets selling for $US20 apiece, while smartphones with computer-like functions will retail for hundreds of dollars.

Smartphones, currently a luxury segment, will make up just over one fifth of all phone sales by 2008. (Click to read more)
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