COMPANIES

Saab remains optimistic a buyer can be found for the whole company in the face of indications its owner, General Motors Co, is talking to China's BAIC about a partial sale of assets tied to the Swedish brand.

Tesco Plc, the world's No.3 retailer, posted quarterly sales growth toward the bottom end of forecasts, held back by a drop in food price inflation, but said a gradual consumer recovery remained on track.

General Motors Co is talking to BAIC, China's fifth largest car maker, about a partial sale of assets associated with its Saab brand, including tooling and technology, two people with direct knowledge of the discussions said.

British telecoms firm Daisy Group Plc posted a loss for the nine-month period and said it would cut jobs to integrate its acquired businesses but was comfortable with current market expectations.

Three former executives at now-bankrupt lender New Century Financial Corp were charged with fraud by U.S. securities regulators on Monday, the latest government effort to pursue wrongdoing in the subprime mortgage market.

Cosmos Capital Inc, a Canadian private equity group, said late on Monday it withdrew from a bidding war for the nation's largest domestic advertiser, Cossette Inc, four months after its first bid was rejected.

A senior Treasury Department official defended the government's much-criticized mortgage modification program and said it will help millions of homeowners in the next few years.

Leading Indian telecoms firm Bharti Airtel sees revenue pressured in the short term amid an intense price war in the country's wireless sector, director Akhil Gupta told news channel CNBC-TV 18.

Daimler's German workforce, fearing more cars could be shifted to foreign plants just days after management decided to build a key model in its Alabama facility instead of in Sindelfingen, has demanded job guarantees until 2020.

General Motors Co has tapped recruiting firm Spencer Stuart to find a permanent chief executive with extensive global, manufacturing and turnaround experience, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Russia's UC RUSAL will delay its $2 billion share flotation to 2010 after the Hong Kong bourse asked the world's top aluminium maker to meet conditions before its main owner can tap the market to service debts.

Daimler expects fourth-quarter sales volume at its Mercedes-Benz passenger car division to rise considerably in the fourth quarter as weak year-earlier figures helped flatter growth rates in November.

Dutch grocer Super de Boer said on Monday the competition authority had approved its sale to rival Jumbo, and Chief Executive Jan Brouwer, who helped lead the company back to profitability, would resign.

Volkswagen took the second step in its multi-stage integration with Porsche SE, acquiring on Monday a 49.9 percent stake in its sports car business for 3.9 billion euros ($5.8 billion).

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co Ltd, the country's third-largest life insurer, plans to raise up to HK$25.9 billion ($3.34 billion) from a Hong Kong initial public offering, a source close to the deal said on Sunday.

Translation company Language Line Services Holdings Inc hopes to go public in an initial public offering that would raise as much as $400 million.

French biotech ExonHit Therapeutics plans to use proceeds from a rights issue to buy a small diagnostics firm in the United States to expand use of its test for Alzheimer's disease, the company said on Monday.

A JP Morgan infrastructure fund is in talks to buy only parts of Dragados SPL rather than the whole ports division of Spanish builder ACS, two people familiar with the matter said on Monday. The economic downturn has highlighted the disparity in value of some of the port unit's assets, with JP Morgan now only trying to acquire some of them, the sources said, adding the talks were still continuing.

At first blush, NBC Universal's $30 billion valuation appears high at a time when traditional media's advertising dollars are being siphoned off by the Web.

The Carlyle Group , the U.S. buyout giant backing China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co Ltd, could make a $4 billion profit -- a return of more than six times its investment -- once China's No.3 life insurer floats shares in Hong Kong.

British confectioner Cadbury said on Monday it would post a formal response to Kraft's $16 billion takeover offer on Dec. 14.

U.S. and British funds are interested in Italian utility A2A's asset disposal plan as well as direct investments, a spokesman said on Monday.

A global water crisis is looming, but the path to profits is a muddy mess of regulated industries, giant companies with small water operations, and start-up technologies.

The new head of Opel promised investments in new models and pledged to put an end to business as usual at the General Motors brand -- addressing two key grievances by unions when he outlined his turnaround plan this weekend.

They normally ponder ways to entertain Americans, but media chiefs this week entertained more somber thoughts about the future of the United States, as several saw a fading superpower hobbled by the recession

Comcast Corp and NBC Universal executives said on Friday they hope to submit documents to antitrust and communications regulators in January.

Real estate investment trust HRPT Properties Trust (HRP.N) said it closed a new mortgage financing for $175 million, secured by one of its Philadelphia properties.

The British founder and chief executive of ING Real Estate Investment Management's multi-manager business has resigned due to the company's plans to relocate the unit's global team to the Netherlands.

Kraft Foods made its formal $16.1 billion offer to Cadbury shareholders, triggering a two-month takeover fight for the chocolate maker and a frosty response from Britain.