IBT Staff Reporter

Acer Inc, the world's No. 3 PC seller, said on Thursday it expected its sales to jump 50 percent or more over the next four years, as it embarks on a worldwide expansion following a recent acquisition.

Dai-Ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co aims to list its shares in 2010 and sell more than $9 billion worth of them in what is likely to be Japan's third-largest initial public offering.

Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, India's largest drug maker by sales, expects strong growth in 2008 and would continue to look for acquisitions in India and abroad, Chief Executive Malvinder Singh said on Thursday.

The fat years may be ending for Chinese banks as bad loans increase and monetary policy tightens. After government bail-outs and reforms ended a debt crisis early this decade, bad loans could rebound because of exposure to the country's red-hot property market. But a debacle on the scale of the U.S. subprime credit crisis remains very unlikely, officials and analysts say.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce posted an 8 percent increase in fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday as various one-time charges in its wholesale unit were largely offset by a gain in its retail business, and taxes were lower.

MBIA, the largest bond insurer in the world, said on Thursday it is looking at ways to shore up its capital base, a day after rating agency Moody's Investors Service said the insurer was somewhat likely to require additional capital.

IBM says it has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which now requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.

Toyota Motor Corp said on Thursday it aims to put its humanoid and other advanced robots to practical use soon after 2010 to help people in factories, hospitals, homes and around town.

Becoming mini-majors by making aggressive plans to acquire overseas oilfields and retail outlets could be a winning strategy.

European stocks extended gains while sterling slipped across the board as the Bank of England cut interest rates, joining other central banks in an attempt to counter the risk of an economic slowdown from the credit crisis.

Oil recovered from lows to hover near six-week lows above $86 a barrel on Thursday as a build-up in U.S. oil product stocks and receding geopolitical concerns outweighed OPEC's decision not to increase crude oil production.

Pakistani lawyers and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif took to the streets on Thursday to demand President Pervez Musharraf reinstate sacked judges.

President George W. Bush is expected to unveil a plan on Thursday to prevent a wave of home loan foreclosures that has threatened to knock the U.S. economy into recession and rattled investors worldwide. The plan hammered out by the U.S. Treasury Department in talks with mortgage industry leaders.

President George W. Bush is expected to unveil a plan on Thursday to help struggling American homeowners avoid foreclosure, addressing a mortgage crisis that risks tipping the U.S. economy into recession and has shaken financial markets around the world.

Apple products, including the Mac and the iPhone, are increasingly being targeted by computer hackers according to new research, shattering years of relative safety for the Apple camp.

The White House on Wednesday nominated a federal judge for deputy attorney general. Mark Filip of Chicago, and three other people were nominated to fill the vacant top positions in the judiciary, but they will wait for final formal approval from the senate.

France Telecom's Orange unit sold about 30,000 smartphones in the first five days. Orange is the sole provider of iPhones in France due to the country's regulations that outlaw marketing practices tieing product sales.

The space shuttle Atlantis and Europe's Columbus lab is poised for a Thursday lift-off to the International Space Station

The holiday box office season kicked off this week to a slower pace than last year - both in the U.S and internationally - putting hopes on Mirimax's controversial The Golden Compass film to rescue the winter.

President Bush kept up his pressure on Iran over its nuclear program on Wednesday, after a new intelligence report released yesterday said it had halted its activities four years ago.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC (Release Candidate) will be made widely available next week, with testers gettign a copy today, Microsoft said in its Vista development Blog on Wednesday.

The Supreme Court on wednesday debated on whether the fate for the prisoners of The War on Terror, held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, deserved hearings before an independent judge to prove their fate.

Google is releasing a new application for the iPhone that combines all of the search giant's online tools into one simple interface, optimized for Apple's venerable portable device.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday that the new U.S. intelligence report on Iran’s nuclear program is in agreement with its previous statements noting that the Agency has no evidence of an ongoing weapons plan or nuclear facilities.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday his supporters can expect him to introduce a reform plan in a new offensive which will turn the country into a socialist state before his term ends in 2013.

Iowa county coordinator for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign quit on Wednesday for allegedly sendind several e-mails naming Barack Obama as a muslim seeking to destroy the U.S. when elected as president.

Genentech's Avastin cancer drug should be rejected for the use in the United States, advisers said on Wednesday.

Gold futures fell on Wednesday, as the U.S. dollar gained following reports showing strong job growth, lowering demand for the precious metal.

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday after a government report said the labor market is strong, easing some worry about a looming economic slowdown.