Business news for Mon, 17 Dec 2007 & with word chief. 32 news.

Quebecor World has parted company with its chief executive, Wes Lucas, amid setbacks at the Montreal-based company, one of the world's biggest commercial printers

PETROCHINA Co, the nation's biggest oil company, will start expanding an ethylene plant in northeast China's Daqing at the end of this month to tap rising chemical demand. The annual capacity of the plant will be doubled to 1.2 million metric tons, the largest in the country, parent China National Petroleum Corp said in its online newsletter China Oil News yesterday. It didn't give an investment figure or the completion date for the project. China plans to more than triple the annual capacity of ethylene to 18.13 million tons by 2010, Bloomberg News reported. PetroChina will raise its ethylene capacity to seven million tons a year by 2010 from 2.63 million tons last year, Liu Jie, deputy chief economic adviser at the firm's chemicals and market unit, said on May 24.

HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's biggest bank by value, aims to start three new funds on the Chinese mainland next year as it taps into the country's rising demand for investment products. "We will see a strong growth and I would be surprised if we didn't see at least US$2 billion of new funds flowing in," Rudolf Apenbrink, chief executive officer of HSBC Investments Hong Kong Ltd, said in an interview with Bloomberg News. HSBC already manages three funds worth US$1.5 billion on the mainland under the joint venture HSBC Jintrust Fund Management Co. It expects to receive regulatory approval for its fourth fund soon and will apply for the qualified domestic institutional investment, or QDII, quota in May, Apenbrink said. Financial companies, including banks, fund managers and insurers, invest abroad using QDII quotas. To cope with managing more funds, HSBC Jintrust plans to recruit as many as 20 new employees next year, Apenbrink said. The company has about 100 employees.

Quebecor World, which has been beset by a host of problems recently, on Monday announced an immediate change in the chief executive's office.

MERRILL Lynch & Co, the securities firm that reported a record US$2.24-billion third-quarter loss, told fixed-income managers to cut 2007 bonuses by an average of 40 percent, according to two people briefed on the matter. Payments may fall by as much as 80 percent for traders who specialize in the mortgage bonds and collateralized debt obligations that posted the steepest losses, said the people, who declined to be named because the decisions aren't public. Bonuses may drop 20 percent for interest-rate traders and 60 percent in the New York-based firm's corporate bond unit, the sources said, according to Bloomberg News. Chief Executive Officer John Thain, who took over from Stan O'Neal on December 1, said he will reward good performers while cutting payouts for people who caused losses. He has to placate investors by trimming wages while making sure the most valuable employees don't leave, said Russ Gerson, head of New York-based recruiting firm Gerson Group. On Wall Street,

THE Japan Bank for International Cooperation, the government's main overseas lender, is to lend US$3 billion to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co to secure a stable supply for Asia's biggest economy, which imports most of its oil needs. The bank raised about a third of the loan amount from the Mizuho Financial Group Inc and other Japanese banks, Bloomberg News said. Abu Dubai Oil, known as ADNOC, will use the loan for oil exploration and building pipelines as well as facilities to boost crude output "With the UAE's oil structured into the loan, crude supplies to Japan are more assured," Hidetoshi Shioda, a senior energy analyst at Mizuho Securities Co, said. "It also benefits the UAE, as Japan will take steady supply for a longer period of time." Japan wants to map out a supply plan after crude prices set a record last month. The loan agreement will be signed this week, when ADNOC's Chief Executive Officer Yousef Omair Bin Yousef is in Tokyo, together with Abu

ACE Ltd has agreed to buy Combined Insurance Co of America from Aon Corp, the world's second-largest insurance broker, for US$2.4 billion in cash. The purchase of the Illinois-based accident, health, and life insurance unit, which has four million policy holders and almost 7,000 sales agents, will probably close by the end of the second quarter, Ace said yesterday. Aon is also selling Washington-based health-care insurer Sterling Life Insurance Co to Munich Re, the world's second-biggest reinsurer, for US$352 million. "The acquisition of Combined is a significant milestone for Ace and represents both an opportunity for considerable growth and expense-related efficiencies," Ace Chief Executive Officer Evan G. Greenberg said. Ace, the Bermuda-based business insurer, said in October it may make an acquisition to expand its life insurance business, according to Bloomberg News. Greenberg said the company was also planning to expand small-business coverage in Asia and

ROYAL KPN NV, the largest phone company in the Netherlands, will reach nearly 500,000 customers for its television products this year, says Chief Financial Officer Marcel Smits. The company's share of the Dutch television market will be about eight percent, Smits said, according to Bloomberg News. Most of KPN's clients subscribe to Digitenne, which offers digital television for a monthly fee of 6.95 euros (US$10.15). "TV will be an important component of the revenue stream," said Smits. The Hague-based KPN is counting on new services such as television and calls over the Internet to make up for the loss of customers at its traditional phone business. KPN, which started offering Digitenne three years ago, aims to beat its initial goal of 10 percent of the Dutch television market, Smits said without being more specific. "They need new products to offset line losses, and TV is one of them," says Joris Franssen, a fund manager at Kempen Capital Management in

AUSTRALIA'S competition watchdog said yesterday it had rejected a proposal led by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd to build a multi-billion-dollar high-speed broadband network in Australia. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission rejected the bid proposed by SingTel and eight other telecommunications groups, saying it did not have adequate audit mechanisms. "The undertaking gives the network owner a high degree of discretion in unilaterally determining non-price terms and conditions for the 15-year undertaking period, without independent regulatory review," ACCC Chairman Graeme Samuel said. "We could not accept so much discretion from a gas, electricity or rail firm. Access seekers would not know where they stood." The regulator, however, said it was generally comfortable with the pricing structured offered by the so-called "G9" consortium, and that it was open to receiving a revised proposal. David Tudehope, chief executive of

BAIDU.COM has teamed up with Huawei Technologies and Intel to strengthen its servers and search technologies to expand its lead in the domestic market over rivals including Google, Nasdaq-listed Baidu said yesterday. Baidu announced it will build a joint lab with Huawei to explore "next-generation" online search and test 3G-related mobile phone services, just one month after Google launched mobile search services in China. "Baidu has to break the bottleneck of the server capacity as the demand for search surges in China," William Chang, Baidu's chief scientist, said. "Baidu has to triple its existing capacity to reach the global level of services." In the third quarter, China overtook the United States to become the world's largest search traffic, with 10 billion hits per month, Baidu said. Baidu has launched a series of new services, such as an Olympics channel, game channel, Baidu TV and online music streaming (partnered with Rock Music Group).

CONSUMER confidence is falling, the odds of a recession have risen, analysts predict the worst holiday shopping since 2002 - and retail-industry executives are buying their companies' shares like never before. Limited Brands Inc Chief Executive Officer Leslie Wexner and eight other executives bought a record amount of stock last month after prices fell to a four-year low. Dillard's Inc director Warren Stephens made the biggest insider purchase ever as shares of the Arkansas-based department store chain headed for the steepest decline since at least 1980. Cambiar Investors LLC, Royce & Associates LLC and Becker Capital Management Inc say insider buying foreshadows a rebound. The last four times executives added to their holdings, the Standard & Poor's Supercomposite Retailing Index rose an average 9.9 percent in the next three months, topping a 6.2-percent average rise in the S&P 500 Index. Retail company officials increased their investments by US$346.4 million since the start

SHANGHAIMART and Dubai-based leading regional online marketplace Tejari announced yesterday they will launch a portal in February next year to facilitate trade between China and the Middle East. Tian Hao, general manager of ShanghaiMart exhibition center, expects the new platform would help its members easily find buyers in the Middle East. China has become a major exporter to Dubai, the gateway to the region, of products including textiles, furniture and toys. "The portfolio of ShanghaiMart matches pretty well with the import portfolio of the Mideast," said Omar Hijazi, Tejari's chief executive.

CENTRO Properties Group, the owner of 700 shopping malls in the United States, slumped 76 percent in Sydney trading and said it was struggling to refinance debt because of the collapse in the US subprime housing market. Melbourne-based Centro suspended dividends and said in a statement that it may have to sell assets, after lenders gave it until February 15 to renegotiate maturing debt. Traditional sources of funding are "shut for business," Chairman Brian Healey said. The share slump wiped A$4.98 billion (US$4.3 billion) from the market value of Centro and Centro Retail Group, the listed real estate investment trust it manages. A sale of assets threatens to undo Chief Executive Officer Andrew Scott's US$9 billion expansion into the US. "Centro are no longer in charge of their own destiny," said Callum Bramah, a Sydney-based analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd, in a report. "We believe Centro will be required to sell assets at a loss simply to use the cash

INGERSOLL-RAND Co, the maker of Thermo King refrigerated trucks, has agreed to buy Trane Inc for US$10.1 billion in cash and stock to gain cooling systems for transportation and buildings. Ingersoll-Rand will pay US$36.50 in cash and 0.23 of a share for Trane, the Bermuda-based company said, according to Bloomberg News. That values the New Jersey-based air-conditioner maker's shares at US$47.81 based on Friday's closing price. Ingersoll-Rand will take on US$150 million of debt. Chief Executive Officer Herbert Henkel said the purchase of the air-conditioner maker will create a company with US$17 billion of sales, more than half coming from the heating and cooling business. Ingersoll-Rand this month completed the sale of its Bobcat construction-machinery unit, shifting its focus to refrigeration systems amid rising trade in frozen foods. "The market for transporting food is very strong," Sanjay Jha, a London-based analyst at Pali International, said in an interview.

(Reuters) -- Orbitz Worldwide Inc. said it would eliminate the position of global chief marketing officer and would manage the company's marketing efforts on a regional basis going forward. The online travel site said in a government filing on Friday that Chief Marketing Officer Randy Wagner ...

Dixon Ticonderoga Co. announced Monday that Donald S. Currie has been appointed chief executive officer effective Jan. 1.

(Crain's) -- Telular Corp., a maker of fixed wireless products, said Monday it appointed its current chief financial officer, Joseph A. Beatty, to be the telecom firm's new CEO. Mr. Beatty will assume the top job Jan. 1, 2008, but will continue on as CFO until a successor is in place. Current ...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. stocks fell Monday as Moody's Investors Services warned it could lower bond insurer credit ratings because of subprime losses and former Fed chief Alan Greenspan warned of a possible recession. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 68.4 points to 13,271.5. The S&P 500 {s: $spx] declined 9.29 points to 1,458.66, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 14.54 points to 2,621.2.

Microsoft boss Bill Gates is poised to claim bragging rights over Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer in the battle of high-end video game systems - at least for this Christmas. However, with the price of Sony's year-old PlayStation 3 coming down...