Business news for Tue, 18 Dec 2007 & with word cent. 18 news.

SEVEN Network now has a 93 per cent interest in Unwired Group and wants to compulsorily acquire the remaining 7 per cent of the target's shares.

INSURANCE Australia Group (IAG) had downgraded its full year insurance margin guidance to between 9 and 11 per cent, due to the impact of recent storms in New South Wales.

Most B.C. residents will be paying about four per cent more for natural gas starting New Year's Day even though the cost of natural gas itself has not increased.

Vivendi's SFR mobile phone subsidiary, the owner of 40.5 per cent of Neuf Cegetel, is in negotiations to buy the remainder of France's third-largest fixed-line phone company for about ?5bn

Denmark's Christmas tree growers, the biggest exporters of the trees in Europe, have been charged with organising a cartel as prices this year spike by up to 25 per cent

The economies of China and India are 40 per cent smaller than previously thought, according to new estimates published by the World Bank this week, meaning that US policymakers and others who see China as a threat can relax

Construction of new homes and apartments in the U.S. dropped by 3.7 per cent last month, led by a 5.5 per cent drop in single-family home building to its lowest annual rate since April 1991.

Big ticket investments by Vodafone and Matsushita Electric lifted FDI inflows in the first half of this fiscal to $7.2 billion, a 65 per cent rise from the year-ago period.

Hyundai Motor India said on Tuesday it will hike prices of its cars across all models between 2.3 per cent by January 2008 owing to rising input and freight costs. The official said the price rise was due to the rising input costs and freight cost. HMIL's product range starts from the flagship Santro, the base model of which is priced at Rs 2,70,000, while its top end Sonata Embera is priced at Rs 15,71,000.

OTTAWA–The composite leading index was unchanged for a second straight month in November, after October was revised down from a preliminary estimate of 0.1 per cent growth.

Fuelled by higher gasoline prices and the rising cost of mortgages, Canada's annual inflation rate edged up to 2.5 per cent in November, but remained unchanged in Toronto.

Higher gasoline and mortgage interest costs helped to boost the annual inflation rate to 2.5 per cent in November, Statistics Canada said Tuesday.

UK Inflation held steady at 2.1 per cent in November despite fears it would be fuelled by rising food and fuel prices, giving the Bank of England more leeway to cut interest rates if the economy slows rapidly at the start of next year

Anthony Cragg is far from being a 'closet indexer'. He is an opportunistic trader rather than a buy-and-hold investor, and his Asia-Pacific fund has returned 10 per cent a year for a decade

ANZ Banking Group said it wants to double its profit and have its Asia Pacific division account for 20 per cent of group earnings in five years time.

THE sale of new homes and units among Australia's largest builders and developers fell 2.6 per cent in November, according to new figures out today.

AN ONLINE car hire business has become Australia's fastest-growing internet travel company, growing its revenue by 242 per cent in three years.

Shares in the beleaguered Photo-Me International plummeted yesterday after the photo-booth operator reported a slump in first-half earnings and warned that it was unlikely to make a profit in the second half.