COMPANIES

Canadian-Austrian auto-parts maker Magna has asked Russia's GAZ to make a bid for a stake in General Motors' German carmaker unit, Opel, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said.

Dubai-listed Air Arabia AIRA.DU, the Middle East's largest low-cost carrier by market value, earned 103 million dirhams ($28 million) in the first quarter, up 32 percent from the year-earlier period.

German travel company TUI is keeping to its plan to provide three vessels for TUI Cruises by 2012, weekly WirtschaftsWoche said, citing TUI Cruises head Richard Vogel.

Pharmaceutical magnate Francesco Angelini is interested in buying 60 or 70 percent of Italian soccer club AS Roma.

Despite major social problems, now is the moment to create a big European car maker by combining Italy's Fiat SpA with the European operations of General Motors, including its German brand Opel, Fiat's Chief Executive said on Saturday.

The Porsche and Piech families will hold around 45-55 percent stake in an entity to be formed from a planned merger between Europe's biggest carmaker Volkswagen and Porsche, according to a German weekly magazine, citing sources.

After months of shunning the initial public offerings of tech companies, investors have begun warming to them again, yet another sign the IPO market might be recovering.

Spain's Jazztel can maintain the pace at which it is capturing new broadband customers after signing up 43,300 new contracts in the first quarter, its chairman told newspaper La Gaceta de Negocios in an interview published on Saturday.

Telecom Italia SpA denied on Saturday a Corriere della Sera report that its management had discussed with two key investors the possibility of merging with Telefonica SA.

State Bank of India (SBI.BO), India's largest lender, reported a forecast-beating 45.6 percent rise in quarterly profit after gains from trading trebled and loan demand soared as borrowers scurried for funds in a slowing economy.

Long-haul trips could be made in spaceships instead of planes in 20 years' time if Virgin's efforts to commercialize space travel succeed, the president of Virgin Galactic told Reuters in an interview.

Job seekers looking for six-figure salaries during the recession are often so worried about their prospects that they ruin their chances with silly mistakes, according to a new survey.

The U.S. unemployment rate rose from 8.5 to 8.9 percent in April with 539,000 jobs lost, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday.

Fannie Mae , the largest provider of funding for U.S. home mortgages, on Friday said it lost $23.2 billion in the first quarter, sending it to the Treasury for a second time for capital to keep it afloat.

A group of Chrysler LLC's dissident lenders disbanded, representatives said on Friday, removing the last legal hurdle to the embattled automaker's quest to complete a merger with Italy's Fiat SpA with U.S. government backing.

A growing number of auto workers are winding up on the streets in and around Toyota City in central Japan as the global downturn sends the world's biggest carmaker plunging into the red.

OppenheimerFunds, one of Chrysler LLC's dissident secured lenders, said on Friday it has decided to withdraw its opposition to the automaker's proposed debt restructuring plan as it no longer expects to increase its recovery rate.

Bankrupt U.S. auto parts maker Delphi Corp (DPHIQ.PK) won interim court approval of a two-week extension of the deadline for it to reach a funding agreement with General Motors Corp (GM.N), according to court documents.

Toyota Motor Corp lost $6.9 billion in the final quarter and warned of a big loss in the just-started financial year as sales tumble.

GMAC LLC, the auto and mortgage lender, will likely be forced to seek more taxpayer help in its effort to raise $11.5 billion of new capital following the government

Deutsche Bank downgraded PepsiAmericas Inc and Pepsi Bottling Group Inc to hold from buy, even as it raised price targets on the two largest Pepsi bottlers, saying it expects PepsiCo's bid price to move up, following the bottlers' initial rebuff.

Liberty Media Corp (LINTA.O) posted a decline in operating income and revenue on Friday as sales at its QVC shopping channel plunged in the U.S. and Britain due to a difficult retail environment.

Telecom Argentina SA, one of Argentina's top telephone companies, said net profit rose 21 percent in the first quarter as Internet and mobile phone sales increased.

Leggett & Platt Inc, a maker of bed springs and store shelving, revised its first-quarter earnings to reflect increased bad debt expense due to the shutdown of one of its customers.

Mexico's peso firmed on Friday and stocks jumped as the U.S. government's stress tests eased worries about major banks and data showed employers in the United States cut fewer jobs than expected in April.

Toyota Motor Corp , the world's biggest automaker, forecast a much bigger-than-expected $8.6 billion annual loss and said it would sell about 1 million fewer vehicles this year, leaving it desperately trying to cut costs in the grip of a severe market downturn.

The world's biggest automaker, forecast a much bigger-than-expected $8.6 billion annual loss and said it would sell about 1 million fewer vehicles this year, leaving it desperately trying to cut costs in the grip of a severe market downturn.

Toyota Motor Corp , the world's biggest automaker, forecast a much deeper-than-expected annual loss of $8.6 billion as sales tumble, keeping dozens of its factories underused.

Toyota Motor Corp, the world's biggest automaker, lost $6.9 billion in the fourth quarter and forecast more losses for the current year as sales tumble, keeping dozens of its factories underused.