In other news
Porsche increased its stake in Volkswagen to over 35%, giving it “de facto control” of Europe’s biggest carmaker. Porsche has already made public its plan to raise its stake to above 50%, and bring the two companies together. However, the plan is being resisted by VW’s powerful unions and by the German state of Lower Saxony, VW’s second-largest shareholder.
Germany’s BASF, the world’s biggest chemical company, made a friendly bid for Ciba, a Swiss rival that specialises in plastics additives, coatings and water and paper treatment. The deal is valued at SFr3.5 billion ($3.1 billion).
Hewlett-Packard said it would cut almost 25,000 jobs as it pushes forward its integration with Electronic Data Systems, which it bought earlier this year. The number of job losses, around half of which will be in the United States, was much larger than many analysts had expected.
Dell’s share price slid to a ten-year low when it forecast a “further softening” in demand for information technology.
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics unveiled an offer of almost $6 billion for SanDisk, which the Californian company rejected. Samsung pays SanDisk more than $350m a year to use its patented flash-memory technology.
BAA decided to put Gatwick up for sale. A recent report from Britain’s Competition Commission recommended that BAA sell two of its three London airports. It is keeping Heathrow, but is resisting putting Stansted on the block.
Said Mahmoudi
Dim 21 Sep - 3:24