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Lufthansa flies back to profit |
German airline Lufthansa has returned to profit in 2004 after posting huge losses in 2003. |
In a preliminary report, the airline announced net profits of 400m euros ($527.61m; £274.73m), compared with a loss of 984m euros in 2003. Operating profits were at 380m euros, ten times more than in 2003. Lufthansa was hit in 2003 by tough competition and a dip in demand following the Iraq war and the killer SARS viru... |
Winn-Dixie files for bankruptcy |
US supermarket group Winn-Dixie has filed for bankruptcy protection after succumbing to stiff competition in a market dominated by Wal-Mart. |
Winn-Dixie, once among the most profitable of US grocers, said Chapter 11 protection would enable it to successfully restructure. It said its 920 stores would remain open, but analysts said it would most likely off-load a number of sites. The Jacksonville, Florida-based firm has total debts of $1.87bn (£980m). In its b... |
Analysts say Winn-Dixie had not kept up with consumers' demands and had also been burdened by a number of stores in need of upgrading. A 10-month restructuring plan was deemed a failure, and following a larger-than-expected quarterly loss earlier this month, Winn-Dixie's slide into bankruptcy was widely expected. The c... |
US economy still growing says Fed |
Most areas of the US saw their economy continue to expand in December and early January, the US Federal Reserve said in its latest Beige Book report. |
Of the 12 US regions it identifies for the study, 11 showed stronger economic growth, with only the Cleveland area falling behind with a "mixed" rating. Consumer spending was higher in December than November, and festive sales were also up on 2003. The employment picture also improved, the Fed said. |
"Labour markets firmed in a number of districts, but wage pressures generally remained modest," the Beige Book said. "Several districts reported higher prices for building materials and manufacturing inputs, but most reported steady or only slightly higher overall price levels." The report added that residential real e... |
Saab to build Cadillacs in Sweden |
General Motors, the world's largest car maker, has confirmed that it will build a new medium-sized Cadillac BLS at its loss-making Saab factory in Sweden. |
The car, unveiled at the Geneva motor show, is intended to compete in the medium-sized luxury car market. It will not be sold in the US, said GM Europe president Carl-Peter Forster. As part of its efforts to make the US marque appeal to European drivers, the car will be the first Cadillac with a diesel engine. |
GM's announcement should go some way to allay fears of the Saab factory's closure. The factory in Trollhaettan has been at the centre of rumours about GM's planned severe cutbacks in its troubled European operations. But the group's new commitment to the Swedish factory may not be welcomed by the group's Opel workers i... |
Neither will the announcement be seen as unalloyed good news in Sweden, since it reflects Saab's failure to make significant inroads into the lucrative European luxury car market. For years, Saab has consistently said it is competing head-on with BMW, Mercedes and Jaguar. The segment's leaders do not agree. |
GM's plans to build the American marque in Sweden is part of its efforts to push it as an alternative luxury brand for European drivers. In the US, it has long been established as an upmarket brand - even the presidential limousine carries the badge. Yet it could prove tough for Cadillac to steal market share from the ... |
Bringing Cadillac production to Sweden should help introduce desperately-needed scale to the Saab factory, which currently produces fewer than 130,000 cars per year. That is about half of what major car makers consider sufficient numbers for profitable operations, and Saab is losing money fast - albeit with losses halv... |
In a separate announcement, GM unveiled a new scheme to allow European consumers the chance to test drive its Opel and Vauxhall models. It is to deploy a fleet of 35,000 test cars across 40 countries, inviting potential buyers to try out a vehicle for 24-hours. It follows a similar initiative by GM in the US. GM said i... |
Bank voted 8-1 for no rate change |
The decision to keep interest rates on hold at 4.75% earlier this month was passed 8-1 by the Bank of England's rate-setting body, minutes have shown. |
One member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) - Paul Tucker - voted to raise rates to 5%. The news surprised some analysts who had expected the latest minutes to show another unanimous decision. Worries over growth rates and consumer spending were behind the decision to freeze rates, the minutes showed. The ... |
However, MPC member Paul Tucker voted for a quarter point rise in interest rates to 5%. He argued that economic growth was picking up, and that the equity, credit and housing markets had been stronger than expected. |
The Bank's minutes said that risks to the inflation forecast were "sufficiently to the downside" to keep rates on hold at its latest meeting. However, the minutes added: "Some members noted that an increase might be warranted in due course if the economy evolved in line with the central projection". Ross Walker, UK eco... |
Industrial revival hope for Japan |
Japanese industry is growing faster than expected, boosting hopes that the country's retreat back into recession is over. |
Industrial output rose 2.1% - adjusted for the time of year - in January from a month earlier. At the same time, retail sales picked up faster than at any time since 1997. The news sent Tokyo shares to an eight-month high, as investors hoped for a recovery from the three quarters of contraction seen from April 2004 on.... |
Within the overall industrial output figure, there were signs of a pullback from the export slowdown. Among the best-performing sectors were key overseas sales areas such as cars, chemicals and electronic goods. With US growth doing better than expected the picture for exports in early 2005 could also be one of sustain... |
Khodorkovsky ally denies charges |
A close associate of former Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky has told a court that fraud charges levelled against him are "false". |
Platon Lebedev has been on trial alongside Mr Khodorkovsky since June in a case centring around the privatisation of a fertiliser firm. The pair claim they are being punished by the authorities for the political ambitions of Mr Khodorkovsky. Mr Lebedev said there were "absurd contradictions" in the case. Opening his de... |
Mr Lebedev and Mr Khodorkovsky, who each face a possible 10 year jail sentence if convicted, will be questioned by a judge over the next few days. Mr Khodorkovsky began his testimony last week, telling the court that he objected to the way that the "running of a normal business has been presented as a work of criminal ... |
China keeps tight rein on credit |
China's efforts to stop the economy from overheating by clamping down on credit will continue into 2005, state media report. |
The curbs were introduced earlier this year to ward off the risk that rapid expansion might lead to soaring prices. There were also fears that too much stress might be placed on the fragile banking system. Growth in China remains at a breakneck 9.1%, and corporate investment is growing at more than 25% a year. The brea... |
Verizon 'seals takeover of MCI' |
Verizon has won a takeover battle for US phone firm MCI with a bid worth $6.8bn (£3.6bn), reports say. |
The two firms are expected to seal the deal on Monday morning, according to news agency reports, despite what was thought to be a higher bid from Qwest. The US telecoms market is consolidating fast, with former long-distance giant AT&T being bought by former subsidiary SBC earlier this year for $16bn. MCI exited bankru... |
Shareholders lost about $180bn when the company collapsed, while 20,000 workers lost their jobs. Former Worldcom boss Bernie Ebbers is currently on trial, accused of overseeing an $11bn fraud. Qwest has itself come under suspicion of sub-standard behaviour, paying the Securities and Exchange Commission $250m in October... |
MCI is the US's second-biggest long distance firm after AT&T. Consolidation in the US telecommunications industry has picked up in the past few months as companies look to cut costs and boost client bases. A merger between MCI and Verizon would be the fifth billion-dollar telecoms deal since October. Last week, SBC Com... |
Crossrail link 'to get go-ahead' |
The £10bn Crossrail transport plan, backed by business groups, is to get the go-ahead this month, according to The Mail on Sunday. |
It says the UK Treasury has allocated £7.5bn ($13.99bn) for the project and that talks with business groups on raising the rest will begin shortly. The much delayed Crossrail Link Bill would provide for a fast cross-London rail link. The paper says it will go before the House of Commons on 23 February. |
A second reading could follow on 16 or 17 March. "We've always said we are going to introduce a hybrid Bill for Crossrail in the Spring and this remains the case," the Department for Transport said on Sunday. Jeremy de Souza, a spokesman for Crossrail, said on Sunday he could not confirm whether the Treasury was planni... |
However, he said some impetus may have been provided by the proximity of an election. |
The new line would go out as far as Maidenhead, Berkshire, to the west of London, and link Heathrow to Canary Wharf via the City. Heathrow to the City would take 40 minutes, dramatically cutting journey times for business travellers, and reducing overcrowding on the tube. The line has the support of the Mayor of London... |
Small firms 'hit by rising costs' |
Rising fuel and materials costs are hitting confidence among the UK's small manufacturers despite a rise in output, business lobby group the CBI says. |
A CBI quarterly survey found output had risen by the fastest rate in seven years but many firms were seeing the benefits offset by increasing expenses. The CBI also found spending on innovation, training and retraining is forecast to go up over the next year. However, firms continue to scale back investment in building... |
The CBI said companies are looking to the government to lessen the regulatory load and are hoping interest rates will be kept on hold. "Smaller manufacturers are facing an uphill struggle," said Hugh Morgan Williams, chair of the CBI's SME Council. "The manufacturing sector needs a period of long-term stability in the ... |
Deutsche Boerse boosts dividend |
Deutsche Boerse, the German stock exchange that is trying to buy its London rival, has said it will boost its 2004 dividend payment by 27%. |
Analysts said that the move is aimed at winning over investors opposed to its bid for the London Stock Exchange. Critics of the takeover have complained that the money could be better used by returning cash to shareholders. Deutsche Boerse also said profit in the three months to 31 December was 120.7m euros ($158.8m; £... |
Frankfurt-based Deutsche Boerse has offered £1.3bn ($2.48bn; 1.88bn euros) for the London Stock Exchange. Rival pan-European bourse Euronext is working also on a bid. Late on Monday, Deutsche Boerse said it would lift its 2004 dividend payment to 70 euro cents (£0.48; $0.98) from 55 euro cents a year earlier. "There is... |
Japanese growth grinds to a halt |
Growth in Japan evaporated in the three months to September, sparking renewed concern about an economy not long out of a decade-long trough. |
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YAML Metadata Warning:The task_categories "text2text-generation" is not in the official list: text-classification, token-classification, table-question-answering, question-answering, zero-shot-classification, translation, summarization, feature-extraction, text-generation, fill-mask, sentence-similarity, text-to-speech, text-to-audio, automatic-speech-recognition, audio-to-audio, audio-classification, audio-text-to-text, voice-activity-detection, depth-estimation, image-classification, object-detection, image-segmentation, text-to-image, image-to-text, image-to-image, image-to-video, unconditional-image-generation, video-classification, reinforcement-learning, robotics, tabular-classification, tabular-regression, tabular-to-text, table-to-text, multiple-choice, text-ranking, text-retrieval, time-series-forecasting, text-to-video, image-text-to-text, image-text-to-image, image-text-to-video, visual-question-answering, document-question-answering, zero-shot-image-classification, graph-ml, mask-generation, zero-shot-object-detection, text-to-3d, image-to-3d, image-feature-extraction, video-text-to-text, keypoint-detection, visual-document-retrieval, any-to-any, video-to-video, other
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