STOCKHOLM - Sweden’s centre-right government has chosen four bidders in its auction of Vin & Sprit that will be allowed to perform due diligence of the Absolut vodka maker, business daily Dagens Industri reported on Sunday.
PARIS - European Central Bank (ECB) Governing Council member Christian Noyer has said in an interview released on Sunday euro zone growth might be weaker than hoped as a result of market turmoil but he saw no “large setback”.
LONDON - Britain decided to nationalize Northern Rock on Sunday, abandoning a five-month attempt to snare a private sector purchaseer for the ailing bank and piling more pressure on Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
CARACAS - Venezuela could sue Exxon Mobil for not paying taxes on a few of the oil it produced, President Hugo Chavez has said on Sunday, amid an escalating legal battle with Exxon over compensation for nationalized assets.
FRANKFURT - German state-owned development bank KfW is extending an initial deadline for bids for subprime casualty IKB by at least another week because it gave details of a capital increase late on Saturday, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
FRANKFURT - Deutsche Telekom plans to keep on cutting jobs and may consider small investments in emerging markets, its chief executive has said in extracts of a newspaper interview released on Sunday.
FRANKFURT - Volkswagen denied on Sunday that the chairman of its supervisory board, Ferdinand Piech, wanted to oust Wendelin Wiedeking as chief executive of sports car maker Porsche , VW’s largegest shareholder.
NEW YORK - Efforts to rescue a distraught United States bond insurance industry could inject a positive note on Wall Street but the economic data and earnings reports on tap for this week are unlikely to change a downward trend for stocks.