Business news for Sun, 16 Dec 2007 & with word world. 34 news.

OUTGOING Westpac Banking Corporation chief executive officer David Morgan has been appointed to the board of world's biggest miner BHP Billiton Ltd as a non-executive director.

Neiman Marcus has been selling the best of the best for 100 years. Today the name is synonymous with luxury around the world, and during the holidays, the store outdoes itself.

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, chairman of the IMF's international monetary and financial committee, tells the FT Europe could bear the brunt of a world slowdown

EUROPEAN stocks have had the biggest weekly loss in a month, led by mining companies and banks, on concern a plan by central banks to add cash to the financial system won't prevent an economic slowdown. "That's not the same as a broad rate cut," said Gerard Piasko, who oversees the equivalent of US$107 billion as chief investment officer of Julius Baer Holding AG's private banking division in Zurich. "The market prefers a proactive monetary policy. Risks to growth are increasing." BHP Billiton Ltd and Anglo American Plc, the world's largest mining companies, led an industry measure to its steepest drop in four weeks. HBOS Plc, the UK's biggest mortgage lender, tumbled the most in a month. UBS AG fell after Europe's largest bank by assets said a bond sale to replenish capital may raise the number of shares by as much as 12 percent, Bloomberg News reported. The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index dropped 1.5 percent to 367.24, the steepest decline since the week ended

ASIAN stocks fell last week, dragging a key stock index to its biggest decline in four months as a United States interest-rate cut failed to ease concern that the world's largest economy will slide into a recession. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, Japan's biggest bank by market value, and Samsung Electronics Co, South Korea's largest exporter, led the decline after the Federal Reserve said the US economy is slowing. BHP Billiton Ltd, the world's largest miner, dropped after metal prices fell. "Market sentiment has been shaken," said Yang Haeman, who manages the equivalent of almost US$1 billion at NH-CA Asset Management in Seoul. "A US slowdown is already quite certain and investors now are also worried that this will result in a global slowdown." The MSCI Asia Pacific Index last week plunged 4.7 percent to 156.78. The drop was the most since the week ended August 17. Concern that losses tied to the US subprime market will derail global growth prompted

MANY Chinese individual investors are in the dark about what warrants are and how they work. But they still plunge into the market dreaming of making a quick buck out of them. Their blind investing passion, however, has created the world's largest warrants market in terms of trading volume. Only two years old and with just 40 products on offer, the mainland's warrants market has produced an accumulated turnover of 9.16 trillion yuan (US$1.24 trillion) by the end of October this year. The Hong Kong warrants market, which is the second biggest in China, offers more than 2,000 products. On June 26, it generated a HK$18 billion (US$2.31 billion) turnover. But China's mainland, with only 17 warrants traded that day, had a turnover of 137.2 billion yuan. "Some view it (the market) as a miracle. But it looks more like a casino than a corporate fund-raising mechanism," said an analyst surnamed Xu at Guotai Jun'an Securities Co. "And it is ruled by speculators."

CITIGROUP Inc Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit's decision to bail out seven subprime-infected investment funds with US$49 billion in assets may increase the chance of a dividend cut at the largest United States bank. The rescue package erodes the bank's capital buffer against loan losses, Bank of America analyst John McDonald has written in a report. The move adds pressure on the bank to reduce its quarterly 54-cent-a-share payment to investors, said Meredith Whitney, an analyst at CIBC World Markets. "The risks continue to mount for this already vulnerable financial giant," Whitney said in a report. Citigroup's SIV plan "will further imperil its fragile capital ratios going into the fourth quarter and surely pressure the company to continue to raise capital, sell assets and cut its dividend." Citigroup has tumbled more than 40 percent this year on the New York Stock Exchange as the collapse of the subprime mortgage market led to at least US$9 billion of

ROCHE Holding AG, the world's biggest maker of cancer medicines, said its Avastin tumor-fighting drug did not aggravate the risk of heart problems when given with standard chemotherapy to breast cancer patients who had surgery. The use of Avastin with anthracycline-based chemotherapy did not increase the risk of heart problems associated with that type of toxic chemical therapy, the Swiss company said in an e-mailed statement. Roche plans to carry out two late-stage studies of Avastin as an adjuvant therapy against breast cancer, Bloomberg News reported. Avastin is currently used against colon and lung cancer in the US as well as breast cancer in Europe. The medicine, developed by US partner Genentech Inc brought in 2.96 billion Swiss francs (US$2.53 billion) in sales for the Swiss drug maker in 2006. Roche is seeking to expand use of the medicine to different types of tumors and to different stages of the disease. "These findings pave the way for Avastin's use as a

BHP BILLITON Ltd, the world's largest mining company, has suspended a plan to buy back US$10 billion of its shares traded on the London Stock Exchange amid a proposal to acquire rival Rio Tinto Group. "Since we are in possession of non-public price sensitive information we are unable to buy back our own shares or put another mandate in place at this stage," Samantha Evans, spokeswoman for the Melbourne-based BHP, said, Bloomberg News reported. BHP had bought back US$4.2 billion of its shares since starting the program on February 7, according to its Website. BHP has continued to buy its shares, which trade in Australia and also London as BHP Billiton Plc, since its US$127 billion proposal to buy rival Rio Tinto Group was revealed on November 8. Rio Tinto last week asked UK regulators to set a deadline for BHP to make a formal bid or drop its proposal. "If they are contemplating a bid, which they obviously are, it is probably inappropriate for them to continue to

AMAZON.COM Inc, the world's largest Internet retailer, is close to an agreement to move to a new headquarters in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood. The company would be the main tenant in a 1.5 million square feet (209,032 square meters) project to be built in the area, said insiders, Bloomberg News reported. The first phase is being developed by Microsoft Corp co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc and Bellevue, Washington-based Schnitzer West LLC. The entire project is due to be completed in 2011. The move would allow Amazon to consolidate operations in a city where it leases about 970,000 square feet in five buildings. The company has outgrown its landmark Beacon Hill head office since moving there in 1999. Amazon's sales increased more than sixfold since then to US$10.7 billion last year. Attracting Amazon advances Allen's efforts to transform South Lake Union, a one-time industrial district, into a mecca for technology and design companies and high-rise condominiums. On

INTERNATIONAL Business Machines Corp, the world's biggest computer-services company, increased its workforce by 10 percent in Brazil, Russia, India and China to about 100,000 this year. The hiring is part of the company's effort to boost revenue from emerging markets, Vice President Jesse Greene said. Chief Executive Officer Samuel Palmisano told analysts in May that IBM wants to double its sales in India, Brazil, Russia and China by 2010.

TAIWAN'S economy will expand 4.31 percent in 2008, the Economic Daily News reported, citing a forecast by government-funded research group Academia Sinica. The research group forecast the island's economic growth rate will slow from 5.15 percent this year as high oil prices and US financial-market turmoil slow the world economy. The island's statistics bureau said last month that economic growth may reach 5.46 percent this year, compared with 4.89 percent last year.

JAPAN'S top car maker Toyota Motor Corp will raise its projected global production to almost 10 million vehicles next year and could soon outpace US rival General Motors Corp to become the world's biggest auto maker, a newspaper reported yesterday. Toyota plans to raise its output projection for 2008 to 9.95 million vehicles worldwide from 9.9 million projected for the current year, the Nikkei business newspaper said. It did not say where it got the information. The production increase reflects booming sales in China, the Middle East and other emerging economies, the Nikkei said. Toyota officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the report. Toyota reported in November its worldwide production totaled 7.05 million vehicles in the first nine months of this year, just short of 7.06 million vehicles sold by GM for the same period. Analysts expect Toyota to soon overtake GM as the world's biggest car maker, however, as the Japanese company gains global popularity

The International Finance Corporation, the private-sector arm of the World Bank, is to co-ordinate a $1bn package of debt and equity funding designed to strengthen health across Africa by supporting the private sector

Four of the world's largest financial guarantors risk losing their top-notch credit ratings unless they strengthen their capital reserves and review their business strategies, Moody's said

As news organizations scramble to champion their rights to cover games and publish photographs, a coalition of 37 sports is seeking to protect its intellectual property rights in a fast- changing digital world.

The continent is booming but the rest of the world doesn't seem to be listening, says Chandran Nair

The financial world may be crumbling but judging by yesterday's bonus declarations, that appears not to be the investment bankers' problem even if it is their fault

By Captain Hook. "Whether it be due to a global currency crisis, it’s effects, or because worse is yet to come, no matter, the ever-growing hyperinflationary mountain of paper promises is precariously perched on the edge of a precipice ready to fall, and in doing so; such an event would accelerate the end of the US Dollar ($) empire, along with its dominance in world affairs and trade."

Ingersoll-Rand Co. will acquire Trane and create one of the world's largest makers of commercial and residential home air conditioners, refrigerators for trucks and stores, and other climate control products.