COMPANIES

Japan's Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd said on Friday it has developed a technology to make fuel cells without platinum, the precious metal used in the electrolyte process in existing hydrogen-based fuel cells.

A fast car with a James Bond image held onto its place atop a list of the coolest brands in Britain in a newly released survey on Thursday.

One-Two-Go, the budget airline whose jet crashed on the Thai resort isle of Phuket on Sunday, killing 88 people, was one of the first low-cost operators to spring up in the southeast Asian tourist haven.

Nestle, the world's largest food company, is most likely to name Chief Financial Officer Paul Polman as its new chief executive, replacing Peter Brabeck, Swiss Sunday newspapers reported.

Leap Wireless International Inc. said on Sunday its board of directors had unanimously rejected an unsolicited bid worth more than $5 billion from larger rival MetroPCS Communications Inc.

Altria's planned split into separate U.S. and international tobacco companies will lift the company's stock even though investors' reaction has been only lukewarm, financial newspaper Barron's said in its September 17 edition.

A Royal Bank of Scotland-led consortium will most likely buy ABN AMRO as Barclays' rival offer for the Dutch bank has little chance of matching the consortium's bid financially, ABN's chief executive told Dutch TV on Sunday.

Contract talks between General Motors Corp and the United Auto Workers union resumed on Sunday, a day before tens of thousands of GM factory workers were due to return to work at the No. 1 U.S. automaker in the absence of a new contract.

Negotiators from General Motors Corp and the United Auto Workers were making significant progress on Saturday on a new labor contract, but major issues remained unresolved, a person close to the talks said.

HSBC's private banking business has been little hit by the ongoing credit crisis, the head of the bank's private banking business, Chris Meares, told a Swiss newspaper.

Three years after mutual funds first started disclosing how they vote on proposals at company meetings, investors are still struggling to get a clear picture on where their funds stand on key corporate issues.

At a time when a CEO of a large U.S. company is likely to earn in one day what the average worker does in a year, an investment adviser takes the income-disparity controversy a few steps further in Are the Rich Necessary?

Shares of Macy's rose as much as 4 percent on Friday as an options analyst cited renewed speculation that the department store operator could be ripe for a takeover.

Electronics retailer RadioShack Corp will start selling video-game software in its stores, a Citigroup analyst said on Friday.

Suits behind the scenes of New York Fashion Week

Barclays won shareholder support today for its €62 billion (£42 billion) bid to acquire ABN Amro, the Dutch bank, but said that it was not committed to a deal at any price.

Alcatel-Lucent's revenue warning is raising worries about weaker U.S. wireless network spending, which could also hurt other communication equipment makers such as Nortel Networks Corp.

Shares of Northern Rock Plc's plunged after the mortgage lender said it was unable to line up short-term loans from other financial institutions, and received emergency funding from the Bank of England.

Shares of U.S. new home builder Hovnanian Enterprises rose nearly 10 percent on Friday amid an ongoing housing downturn on buzz about a weekend sale which starts today.

India's Mahindra & Mahindra has decided not to bid for Ford Motor Co's Land Rover and Jaguar brands, the Economic Times reported on Friday, citing investment banking and industry sources.

Bank of America sold 230 billion yen ($2 billion) of global bonds on Friday, sources said, joining a handful of major banks that have sought to raise cash in Japan's stable credit markets.

Merrill Lynch & Co warned on Friday that shaky credit markets forced the world's largest brokerage to adjust the value of securities linked to risky subprime mortgages and other products, a move that could hurt third-quarter profit.

First Acceptance Corp shares fell more than 30 percent on Friday after the automobile insurance provider posted a quarterly loss and had its access to capital reduced as it failed to comply with terms of a credit agreement.

British banks have been borrowing unusually large amounts from the European Central Bank due to the Bank of England's reluctance to make extra funds available, a German newspaper reported on Friday.

Northern Rock Plc's share price plunge after needing a lifeline from the Bank of England has turned the mortgage lender into a stricken target, more likely than ever to fall prey to a takeover bid.

Fueled by last year's Nobel Prize for a man nicknamed banker to the poor, microlending to small businesses in the world's poorest countries is booming as individuals discover they can be their own mini World Bank.c

Toyota Motor Corp, the world's biggest auto maker, plans to build a new car plant in Japan to revamp its production facilities, domestic media reported on Friday.

Britain's Cadbury Schweppes Plc rejected a private equity bid for its North American drinks unit over the terms rather than price after it was asked to finance a third of the deal, industry sources said on Friday.

The Bank of England has offered an emergency loan to Northern Rock after the mortgage lender became the biggest British casualty of the credit squeeze sparked by the crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage market. The British central bank's support is the first time it has acted as lender of last resort in this way since becoming independent on interest rate policy in 1997.