Business news for Mon, 17 Dec 2007 & with word firm. 35 news.

Following up on its vow to raise money by selling its drugs to other companies, PDL BioPharma of Redwood City announced today that a Japanese company has agreed to buy a PDL drug used in bone marrow transplants for $200 million in cash.

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.

SHANGHAI'S new apartments, excluding budget homes and houses designated for relocated residents, have been sold at an average price of 1.28 million yuan (US$172,970) per unit so far this year, a major real estate research firm disclosed yesterday. The price represents an increase of 11.4 percent compared to 2006. "By December 15, approximately 20.39 million square meters of new homes have been sold in the city with an average price of 10,292 yuan per square meter," said Xue Jianxiong, head of research at Shanghai Youwin Real Estate Information Service Co Ltd, the report compiler. "Last year, 16.77 million square meters of new houses were sold, at an average price of 9,432 yuan per square meter." In terms of unit and space, 163,645 apartments have been sold till mid December, with an average unit space of 124.65 square meters (gross floor area), compared with 137,335 units sold in 2006 with an average GFA of 122.15 square meters, according to Youwin

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,

GERMANY's Evonik Industries AG has started construction of a 24-million-euro (US$34.6 million) plant for cyanuric chloride in western China to boost local supply. Construction of the plant in Chongqing is set to be completed by the end of 2008, with about 280 employees. The factory will double the firm's cyanuric chloride capacity in China to 60,000 tons. Cyanuric chloride is an intermediate chemical used in agricultural applications and in the textile, paper and plastics industries.

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

San Francisco private equity firm JH Partners LLC provided the financing for AmeriMark Direct to buy Dr. Leonard's Healthcare Corp.

The firm sees deepening credit troubles for the battered sector.

Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to sell its medical imaging group to private equity firm Avista Capital Partners for about $525 million.

(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 ...

(Reuters) - Research firm Morningstar Inc. said it agreed to buy Hemscott data, media and investor relations Web site businesses from Ipreo Holdings LLC for $51.6 million in cash, to strengthen global equity base and expand into international markets. The companies expect to complete the ...

Insurance firm Norwich Union is fined £1.26m for exposing some of its customers to identity fraud.

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- National Oilwell Varco on Thursday said it would buy Grant Prideco for about $7.5 billion in cash and stock. National Oilwell, a leading oil drilling firm, will pay $23.50 in cash and 0.4498 a share of its stock for each share of Grant Prideco. The deal values Grant Prideco at a premium of 22% to Friday's closing price.

John A. Thain may be new to the top seat at Merrill Lynch, but if a Bloomberg News report is to be believed, he’s making his mark on the firm quickly. In the wake of the firm’s $2.24 billion third-quarter loss, stemming from trading losses, Mr. Thain has told fixed-income managers to cut 2007 bonuses by [...]

A start-up firm is using automated chat to keep online customers from abandoning their virtual shopping carts, Fortune's Paul Sloan reports.

Related Companies, the New York real estate developer, said Monday it would receive $1.4 billion in equity and debt investments from a group including Goldman Sachs, Michael Dell’s MSD Capital and Mubadala Development, an affiliate of an investment firm owned by Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Related is one of New York’s biggest residential [...]

Owners representing more than 55 percent of shares in Swedish clothing retailer Gant have rejected a bid from Lacoste-brand owner Maus Freres, shareholder Ricon SGPS said on Monday. Switzerland’s Maus Freres earlier this month offered 310 Swedish crowns per share for the Sweden-based firm, valuing it at about 5.2 billion Swedish crowns ($801 million) Go to Article [...]

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Plains Exploration & Production Company on Monday said it would sell oil and gas properties to Occidental Petroleum and XTO Energy for $1.75 billion. The Houston energy firm also set plans to buy back $1 billion in stock and spend $1.15 billion on its 2008 capital budget. "The oil and gas property divestments balance PXP's asset portfolio and align operator strengths to specific assets maximizing efficiencies and returns," PXP Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Flores said in a statement. (An earlier version of this item incorrectly omitted the transaction with XTO Energy.)

Helix Health, which provides software for the healthcare sector, is to invest €2.7m in research and development.