Greek Titan Cement agrees to buy US concrete firm

(Reuters) - Titan did not say how much it would pay for the acquisition.

Titan already operates a cement plant in Roanoke, Virginia, a cement import terminal in Norfolk, as well as other ready-mix concrete plants and fly ash processing businesses in the U.S.


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Local shopping center vacancy rises

(Reuters) - The first-quarter vacancy rate for strip malls and local shopping centers anchored by grocery or drug stores rose 0.10 percentage points to 7.2 percent, research firm Reis Inc. said in a report released on Wednesday.

"Consumer spending has remained strong, but there is some expectation that the pace of consumer spending growth will slow in the coming quarters," said Sam Chandan, Reis chief economist.


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UPDATE 1-Hoya to decide on tender bid for Pentax by Apr 23

(Reuters) - Hoya is set to hold a board meeting on April 23, when the firm also plans to announce full-year earnings results, a senior company official told Reuters late on Tuesday.

"It's not good for us or Pentax if we hold this off forever," said the Hoya executive, who declined to be named.


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Bidvest says in talks on acquisitions

(Reuters) - South African services group Bidvest on Tuesday said it was in talks to make a number of acquisitions, each of which were at different stages of the transaction process.

"Shareholders are accordingly advised to exercise caution in their dealings in Bidvest shares until such time as further announcements are made," Bidvest said.


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BT withdraws from Nigerian telecoms deal - source

(Reuters) - BT Group Plc has pulled out as technical partner to Nigerian privatised telecoms company Nitel because the new owner, Transcorp, lacks funds to keep the company running, a source close to Nitel said on Tuesday.

The withdrawal of the telecom giant is a second blow to Transcorp, which owns 51 percent of Nitel, after Nigerian banks failed to disburse funds into the ailing utility.


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Applied Materials up amid Aixtron talk

(Reuters) - The shares of Applied Materials rose to $19.10 in electronic trade, from a close of $18.65.




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Wall Street seen mixed ahead of Alcoa, oil up

(Reuters) - Citigroup will also hog the limelight. The banking giant is due to unveil a major overhaul, which various media said could lead to its workforce being cut by 5 to 8 percent.

The potential for further tension with Iran helped push oil towards $62, interrupting six straight days of losses, which should buoy energy stocks such as Exxon Mobil .


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Blackstone leaves Sainsbury bidding group: source

(Reuters) - It could not immediately be determined if CVC had pulled in any other partners.

Blackstone, like KKR and Texas Pacific, both left the group assembled by CVC Capital Partners , before a sweeteened bid of 582 pence was submitted at the weekend, sources said.


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Credit underperforms equities on surging M&A

(Reuters) - Spreads on the iTraxx series of credit default swaps are still wider than in February, when global asset markets were hit by concern over a sell-off in Chinese equities and failing U.S. sub-prime mortgages, while bonds spreads are also softer.

World stocks, meanwhile, hit an all-time high on Tuesday, with MSCI's main world stock index above its high on Feb. 26, the eve of a sharp tumble on global equity markets that was followed by weeks of soaring volatility.


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Cache cuts Q1 outlook on flat March same-store sales

(Reuters) - Same-store sales rose 3 percent during the 13-week period ended March 31, compared with a 4 percent increase for the same period in 2006, Cache said in a statement.




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Futures up, Alcoa to launch earnings season

(Reuters) - Global stocks continued their march higher, with the MSCI All-Country World Index reaching a lifetime high. Stock markets in Australia, Singapore and South Korea rose to records while Germany's DAX was at its highest in six and a half years in European morning trade.

The first-quarter earnings season for U.S. companies unofficially begins after the closing bell when aluminum maker Alcoa Inc. announces its results.


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UPDATE 3-Top Asia refiner Sinopec's Q4 jumps, sees rosy Q1

(Reuters) - HONG KONG, April 10 - Top Asian refiner Sinopec Corp. beat forecasts with a 54 percent quarterly earnings leap, as falling oil prices pushed refining margins back into the black and flagged a rosy first quarter.

State-run Sinopec expects January-March net profit to rise by more than half based on Chinese accounting standards, driving its shares up 3.5 percent at HK$7.14 on Tuesday.


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Friedman Billings' REIT unit files for IPO

(Reuters) - FBR Capital Markets was formed in June as the holding company for FBR Group's capital markets, including investment banking and institutional brokerage and research, and asset management businesses.




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PRESS DIGEST - Washington Post - April 10

(Reuters) - Many experts have concluded the U.S. real estate boom of recent years was fueled in part by weakened lending standards that sparked excessive demand and drove up prices. Now, some are worried the looser standards may have permitted a boom of another kind -- a big expansion of mortgage fraud.

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GLOBAL MARKETS-World stocks recover their February/March losses

(Reuters) - MSCI's main world stock index climbed above its high on Feb. 26, the eve of a sharp tumble on global equity markets which was accompanied by soaring volatility and weeks of ructions in other assets.

Equities have steadily recovered since early March, driven by mergers and acquisitions and a belief that global fundamentals remain in place.


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Inhibitex to acquire FermaVir Pharmaceuticals

(Reuters) - The transaction is expected to close by the end of July 2007, Inhibitex said in a statement.




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Tate & Lyle in patent dispute with Chinese firms

(Reuters) - LONDON, April 10 - Britain's Tate & Lyle said on Tuesday it had filed a case in the United States against three Chinese firms alleging infringement of its patents covering the manufacture of zero-calorie sweetener sucralose.

Tate & Lyle said it had filed the case, which is also against 18 importers and distributors, with the United States International Trade Commission .


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Ocean Power sets IPO at 5 mln shares, $20-$22 each

(Reuters) - Ocean Power has applied to list its stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol "OPTT."




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America Movil sees no break-up of T.Italia -report

(Reuters) - "It would be short-sighted to divide up into pieces," he told Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday.

Asked if his company, Latin America's biggest mobile phone operator, was only interested in the Tim Brasil mobile unit, Garcia-Moreno said: "We don't have any plans on that front."


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Sainsbury suitor raises bid to 582p/shr -source

(Reuters) - The group, led by CVC Capital Partners [CVC.UL], has until Friday to say publicly whether it is bidding for Sainsbury or not under a deadline set by the UK Takeover Panel.

The consortium declined to comment as did J. Sainsbury.


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Philips to acquire Health Watch

(Reuters) - The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007.

Philips is the world's biggest lighting maker, a top three hospital equipment maker and Europe's biggest consumer electronics producer.


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America Movil moves to calm T.Italia worries

(Reuters) - By Jo Winterbottom

MILAN, April 10 - America Movil does not want to break up Telecom Italia , Italy's biggest telecoms operator, and would keep the company Italian, its chief financial officer told a newspaper.


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M'bishi Heavy mulls M&As in Europe for wind power

(Reuters) - Mitsubishi Heavy, Japan's biggest heavy machinery maker, has a strong presence in the United States, but its wind power operations in Europe are limited to a smaller number of countries such as Portugal.

Mitsubishi Heavy lags behind local rivals in the region including Demark's Vestas , the world's top wind turbine maker, Germany's Siemens and Enercon and Spain's Gamesa.


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LG.Philips LCD posts smaller-than-expected Q1 loss

(Reuters) - The result was better than a 235 billion won net loss forecast by Reuters Estimates.

The company, which competes with home rival Samsung Electronics Co. and Taiwan's AU Optronics Corp. , has struggled with heavy costs and falling prices of large TV panels.


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Flat screen maker LG.Philips eyes Q2 breakeven

(Reuters) - SEOUL, April 10 - South Korean flat screen maker LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. on Tuesday reported a fourth straight quarterly loss as panel prices resumed their fall in the first quarter, but the loss was smaller than forecast.

The world's No.2 maker of large-sized liquid crystal displays


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Economists cut U.S. GDP forecast for 2007

(Reuters) - The group in March had predicted growth at a rate of 2.5 percent.

The panel also scaled back its expectations of how much inflation will slow, although inflation is expected to grow less rapidly in 2007 than any of the prior three years..


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Bertelsmann says buys Time interest in Bookspan

(Reuters) - Terms of the transaction were not announced.

Bookspan will be integrated into BMG Columbia House, an operating unit of DirectGroup that markets music and DVDs direct to consumers in the United States and Canada through such market-leading brands as BMG Music Service and Columbia House DVD Club.


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Altadis rebuffs improved $16 bln Imperial approach

(Reuters) - "The board believes that the revised Imperial proposal ... reflects neither the strategic value of the company nor the diversity of its unique assets, nor its future growth prospects, and so it has unanimously decided to reject it," Altadis said in a statement.

Imperial, which makes Lambert & Butler and Richmond cigarettes in Britain, and West and Davidoff in Germany, declined to comment.


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S.Africa March net reserves rise on dollar buying

(Reuters) - South Africa's net gold and foreign exchange reserves rose in March to $23.97 billion, data showed on Tuesday, reflecting the central bank's continued efforts to shore up the country's financial position.

The figure rose from $23.736 billion at the end of February, the bank said in a statement posted on its website.


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S.Africa finmin eyes black empowerment review - FT

(Reuters) - South Africa's finance minister Trevor Manuel has called for a review of the country's controversial black economic empowerment (BEE) rules, Treasury spokeswoman Thoraya Pandy said on Tuesday.

She was commenting on a newspaper report which quoted Manuel as saying some firms had appointed token black managers and board members but told them they were not required actually to help run the business.


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