Business news for Sun, 23 Dec 2007 & with words billion+million. 13 news.

CHINA imported 21.7 million tons of soybean in the first three quarters of this year, up 2.1 percent over the year-earlier level. Customs sources said the arrivals were valued at US$7.36 billion, up 32.5 percent. The import price averaged US$339.80 per ton, up 29.8 percent. Higher import costs were due largely to mounting demand, a drop in production and rising transport charges worldwide, the sources said. Of total imports, 99.1 percent came from Brazil, the United States and Argentina. Between January and September, China bought 8.43 million tons of soybean from Brazil, down 10.1 percent, and 4.85 million tons from Argentina, down 0.1 percent. Imports from the United States amounted to 8.22 million tons, up 23.4 percent. Of total arrivals, foreign-funded companies made up 13.66 million tons, up 11.3 percent. State-owned enterprises added 4.73 million tons, down 20.1 percent, and private businesses contributed 2.64 million tons, up two percent. To curb price rises for

CHINA imported 2.04 million tons of cotton worth US$2.83 billion in the first 10 months of this year, down 37.3 percent and 34.8 percent respectively from the same period of 2006. Customs sources said the United States and India were the two leading suppliers. They combined to account for 70.8 percent of China's cotton imports. Between January and October, China imported 1.02 million tons of cotton from the United States, down 37.7 percent, and 424,000 tons from India, down 11.1 percent. The 10-month period saw state-owned enterprises import 622,000 tons of cotton, down 56 percent, and private and foreign-funded companies import 482,000 tons and 431,000 tons, down 19.6 percent and 17.5 percent respectively. The sources said the drop in imports was due to moves to protect domestic producers. The government postponed the distribution of import quotas until more than half of the domestic supply had sold out. In mid July, the government released 300,000 tons of cotton to ease

CHINA'S grain output, which includes rice, wheat, corn and soybean, exceeded 500 million tons this year, making it the fourth consecutive year of increases. The announcement on Saturday by Minister of Agriculture Sun Zhengcai came as the country hoped a bumper crop would help slow increases in the price of food. Huge rises in food prices lifted the nation's consumer price index to an 11-year high of 6.9 percent in November. Food prices soared 18.2 percent last month and make up 33 percent of the CPI weighting. The central government is concerned inflation will worsen and make the lives of poor people much more difficult. However, Sun said grain output was still short of demand this year. He did not give further details. He said the per capita grain supply dropped from 412 kilograms in 1996 to 378 kilograms last year. Grain output peaked at 512 million tons in 1998. Feeding the country's more than 1.3 billion people is becoming more challenging as farmland is shrinking

VISA Inc, the biggest credit-card company, had an US$861-million loss this year on US$2.65 billion in litigation costs, most from settling an antitrust suit brought by rival American Express Co. Legal expenses reversed gains for the San Francisco-based company. Revenue in the fiscal year ended September 30 rose 33 percent to US$5.19 billion, Visa said on Friday in a regulatory filing, Bloomberg News said. The loss compares with a profit of US$453 million in 2006, Visa said. Visa's November 7 settlement with American Express, the third-largest credit-card network, cleared the way for its planned initial public offering next year. The company wants to capitalize on consumers' growing preference for credit and debit cards over cash and checks. MasterCard Inc, the No. 2 network, has gained more than 400 percent since going public in May 2006. American Express sued Visa in November 2004 after the US Supreme Court ruled Visa and MasterCard violated antitrust laws by preventing

UNITED Rentals Inc, the largest construction-equipment rental company in the United States, lost a bid to force a US$4-billion takeover by Cerberus Capital Management LP when a judge ruled the agreement allowed the buyer to withdraw its offer. Delaware Chancery Court Judge William Chandler ruled on Friday that United Rentals officials should have known that Cerberus executives believed they had a right to pull out of the deal at any time as long as they paid a US$100 million fee. United alleged that Cerberus's RAM Holdings buyout entities agreed in July to pay US$34.50 per share for United Rentals' stock, and reneged on the deal in November amid weakened US credit markets. The stock has been trading in the low-US$20 range. United Rentals fell US$3.69 to US$17.91 on Friday. "The board of directors and management team of United Rentals will consider its alternatives under the circumstances, and they continue to believe strongly in United Rentals' future prospects,"

RUPERT Murdoch's News Corp is to sell eight of its Fox network-affiliated television stations in the United States to Oak Hill Capital Partners LP for about US$1.1 billion in cash. The sale leaves Fox with 27 owned-and-operated stations and will probably be completed in the third quarter, New York-based News Corp said on Saturday. Oak Hill will add the stations to nine existing ones, according to its Website, Bloomberg News said. News Corp is selling the assets to focus on its largest and most lucrative markets following the US$5.2 billion takeover of Dow Jones & Co this year. The purchase will help Oak Hill, the buyout firm founded by Texas oil billionaire Robert Bass, create a broader US network after it paid US$575 million to acquire stations from New York Times Co in May. "It is part of News Corp's strategic decision to shed low-growth, non-core assets," said Richard Dorfman, managing director of New York-based investment firm Richard Alan Inc. Network television

RANK Group Ltd, owned by New Zealand's richest man, Graeme Hart, has agreed to buy Alcoa Inc's packaging and consumer businesses for US$2.7 billion in cash to expand in the United States. Alcoa expects to sell the consumer and packaging businesses, which last year generated 10 percent of sales and three percent of after-tax operating income, by the end of the March, the company said. Hart, 52, will gain control of units, including Reynolds Wrap foil in the acquisition. Rank Group, based in Auckland, has made about US$7 billion of acquisitions over two years in the US, New Zealand and Europe to become the world's second-largest drink-carton maker. Last year, Hart bought International Paper Co's beverage-packaging unit for US$500 million and Neuhausen, Switzerland-based SIG Holding AG for US$2 billion. "He's certainly building quite a packaging empire," Stephen Walker, principal of Walker Capital Management Ltd in Auckland, told Bloomberg News. "This extends the

GOLDMAN Sachs Group Inc, the world's biggest securities firm, awarded Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein a record US$67.9 million bonus in 2007 as mortgage losses drove his counterparts at Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns Cos to forgo year-end payouts. Blankfein, 53, will receive US$26.8 million in cash, and US$41.1 million in restricted stock and options, the New York-based firm said in a regulatory filing. Co-Presidents Gary Cohn, 47, and Jon Winkelried, 48, will each receive restricted shares and options valued at about US$40.5 million, up from US$25.7 million last year. Cash payments weren't disclosed for anyone other than Blankfein, who reaped a record-setting US$53.4 million last year. Goldman shattered Wall Street profit records for the fourth consecutive year even as banks and securities firms, including Citigroup Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co, were forced to take at least US$96 billion of writedowns. Goldman set aside US$20.2 billion to pay employee salaries, benefits

MORGAN Stanley, the second-biggest United States securities firm, awarded Co-President Walid Chammah an US$8.9 million stock bonus for 2007, the highest among the firm's executives after Chief Executive Officer John Mack abstained from a year-end award. Chammah, 53, was granted 173,679 restricted shares on Thursday, when the stock closed at US$51.37, the New York-based company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Co-President James Gorman, 49, was awarded 155,380 restricted shares valued at US$7.98 million. The company didn't disclose any cash payments in Friday's filings, Bloomberg News reported. Mack, who received US$40 million last year, is forgoing a 2007 bonus after the firm wrote down US$9.4 billion in debt securities during the fourth quarter and reported its first loss. Mack, 63, last month ousted Zoe Cruz, the co-president who oversaw the securities unit, and demoted trading chief Neal Shear. Cruz, 52, and Shear, 53, were the highest-paid

ITALY'S second-largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, is to pay 310 million euros (US$446 million) to settle a lawsuit with Parmalat SpA, an Italian dairy company that went bankrupt in December 2003. "The settlement brings all pending revocatory and damages actions and all reciprocal claims eventually to be filed to an end," the companies said in a joint statement distributed by the Milan-based Italian exchange. In June, Parmalat also settled lawsuits with Merrill Lynch & Co, ING Groep NV and Banca Monte Parma SpA for a total of 72 million euros, concluding all outstanding claims with those banks, Bloomberg News said. Legal action is still pending against Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, accountant Grant Thornton and other Italian lenders. Parmalat collapsed in 2003 with debt of 14 billion euros, almost eight times the amount reported by former management. The company had never generated a profit after its stock market listing in 1992, though it reported earnings

AXA, France's largest insurer, has agreed to acquire a 36.7-percent stake in Reso-Garantia, Russia's second-largest insurance firm, for 810 million euros (US$1.16 billion). The investment is expected to add to Axa's earnings within three years, the Paris-based company said in a statement. The insurer will have the option to buy the rest of the company through calls exercisable in 2010 and 2011, according to Bloomberg News. Russia's Federal Anti-Monopoly Service gave Dresdner Bank AG, the banking arm of insurer Allianz SA, regulatory approval to buy a controlling stake in Reso on August 14. The next day, news service Vedomosti reported that Dresdner had decided instead to hold onto its Reso shares as collateral for a loan to its holding company. On May 29, Reso-Garantia said it will sell a 20-percent stake in the first public offering of stock by a Russian insurer. The European Bank for Reconstruction & Development said earlier that it was buying a 10-percent stake in

MOST listed Chinese auto makers powered to better-than-expected profit this year on growing sales, and analysts forecast that they will drive investors to higher profit next year. Shanghai Automotive Co Ltd, the listed unit of China's biggest car maker, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp, reported its net profit more than tripled to 3.8 billion yuan (US$513 million) for the first three quarters of this year. Sales rocketed more than 21 times to 76 billion yuan. Shanghai Auto's share price soared more than 170 percent from 8.3 yuan at the start of the year to 26.07 yuan at the close last Friday. Its shares reaped harvest from the car maker selling additional shares to investors last year to expand its core business from auto parts to car production by merging assets in its two joint ventures with General Motors Corp and Volkswagen AG. SAIC sold over 840,000 units in the first half. Net profit at Beiqi Foton, China's largest light vehicle producer, powered 92 percent to 285

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Online shopping revenue is up 19% in the pre-Chistmas period of 2007 holiday season, according to ComScore Inc. [v: scor]. The online data monitoring group said online shoppers spent $26.29 billion for the first 51 days of the holiday season, from Nov. 21 -Dec 21, compared to $22.04 billion in the same period last year. The busiest spending day so far this year was Dec. 10, dubbed "Green Monday," when shoppers spent $881 million, ComScore said.