InBev completes Budweiser merger

Belgium-based brewer InBev has said it had closed its $52bn (£35bn) takeover of the US's Anheuser-Busch to create the world's largest brewer.

"Effective today, InBev has changed its name to Anheuser-Busch InBev," InBev said in a statement.

The new company will be one of the leading consumer products firms in the world.

Anheuser makes Budweiser - the most popular beer in the US - while InBev produces Stella Artois and Beck's.

InBev agreed to sell its Labatt USA business and associated licenses to get approval from the US Justice Department on anti-trust grounds.

46 billion litres of beer

Some US politicians had expressed anger at the prospect of Anheuser-Busch being taken over by a foreign company.

InBev, itself formed by a giant merger of Brazil's AmBev and Belgium's Interbrew several years ago, has promised that Budweiser's headquarters would remain in St Louis, Missouri while none of Anheuser-Busch's US breweries will be closed.

The combined business will have annual sales of $36.4bn, equivalent to 46 billion litres of beer a year.

The two firms have said the deal will generate annual savings of $1.5bn but have suggested that job losses will be kept to a minimum because there is little current overlap between the two businesses.

Anheuser-Busch controls nearly half of the US market, while InBev is strong in Western European and Latin American markets.

It also owns stakes in Mexican brewer Grupo Modelo and Chinese brewer Tsingtao.

The deal should give Budweiser a platform to boost its growth in Europe where, apart from a number of markets like the UK, it has been relatively weak.

Mazda buys own shares from Ford

Japanese carmaker Mazda Motor has spent 17.8bn yen ($184m; £123m) to buy back almost 7% of its shares from troubled US carmaker Ford Motor.

The Japanese company made the announcement the day after Ford decided to cut its stake in Mazda from 33.4% to just over 13%.

Ford has been hit by falling global sales and is seeking to raise cash along with its Detroit competitors.

Shares in Mazda fell 2.1% on Wednesday on the news.

According to media reports on Tuesday, the rest of Ford's stake in Mazda might be bought by trading houses Sumitomo and Itochu, Japanese insurance companies and car parts maker Denso.

Earlier this week General Motors sold its 3% stake in Japanese carmaker Suzuki for $230m (£156m).

Declining value

The possible sale of a 20% stake in Mazda was first reported more than a month ago.

At that moment, the stake was valued at $850m. However, based on Mazda's share price on Tuesday, the value of the holding has fallen to $543m, a quarter of what the stake was worth a year ago.

Ford first bought a stake in Mazda in 1979. It took control of the Japanese carmaker in 1996, saving it from potential bankruptcy.

The "Big Three" US car firms Chrysler, Ford and GM are seeking a total $25bn in emergency US government loans.

Global liquidity crisis 'is over'

The head of Japan's largest brokerage, Nomura Holdings, has suggested the global liquidity crisis is over.

Nomura chief executive Kenichi Watanabe said the main problem now was how to revive the real economy.

"The next issue depends on how the nations of the world apply financial support," Mr Watanabe said.

He also said that the stronger yen was not necessarily bad for Japanese firms, as it could enable companies to seek overseas acquisitions.

"There are many Japanese firms that consider the yen's strength against the euro, pound and dollar as an opportunity," he said.

According to official data, the Japanese economy is now in recession for the first time since 2001.

Nomura is buying bankrupt Lehman Brothers's European, Asian-Pacific and Middle Eastern operations for $2bn (£1.34bn).

But Mr Watanabe said the company was not planning any significant job cuts.

Last month the brokerage reported its third quarterly net loss in a row because of the global financial crisis.

Opec 'lost $700bn on cheaper oil'

Opec members have lost about $700bn (£467bn) because of falling crude prices, the oil cartel's president Chakib Khelil said in an interview.

Oil prices have fallen 60% from their $147 peak, prompting speculation Opec will cut output again to boost prices.

However, speaking to Algerian newspaper El Khabar, Mr Khelil said Opec was unlikely to make a decision this month.

He said the following meeting on 17 December would be "the most important" as the cartel would get necessary data.

The data will show whether Opec's previous output cuts have been applied by its members.

The cartel, which controls 40% of the world's oil supply, agreed on a 1.5 million barrel-a-day reduction last month.

On Wednesday, US light, sweet crude stood at $54.47 a barrel, while Brent crude cost $51.84 a barrel.

"The Cairo meeting [on 29 November] is considered as an internal debate, while the meeting scheduled in Oran [on 17 December], will be more important in a sense that we will obtain, by that time, more information about the oil market trend," El Khabar quoted Mr Khelil as saying.

"All members... are very concerned about the economic situation which has worsened in the United States and Europe who have entered into a recession, followed by Japan," the Opec president said.

US car companies seek $25bn aid

The bosses of the three biggest US carmakers, Ford, GM and Chrysler, have asked Congress for a $25bn bail-out.

They told a Senate hearing that without the rescue package, their firms risked collapse, and warned of broader risks to the US economy.

GM chief executive Rick Wagoner said the firm needed a loan to span the "financial chasm" that had opened up.

However, Republicans and the White House do not want to use the $700bn bank rescue to help car firms.

GM has warned it could run out of cash in a matter of weeks and cannot wait until President-elect Barack Obama - who has promised to help the industry - is sworn in in January.

The BBC's Richard Lister in Washington says the last thing Mr Obama wants is to oversee the death of manufacturing icons during his first few months in office.

Inefficient production

Mr Wagoner told the Senate banking committee that the industry's predicament was not due to failures by management but because of the deepening global financial crisis
He warned millions of jobs and 4% of GDP could be lost without government action.

"It's about saving the US economy from a catastrophic collapse," he said.

But sympathy for the industry appeared to be sparse among senators from both sides, our correspondent says.

The committee chairman, Christopher Dodd, a Democrat, said that the industry was "seeking treatment for wounds that were largely self-inflicted".

But he agreed that "hundreds of thousands would lose their jobs" if the companies were allowed to collapse.

Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican, also voiced doubts about the rescue package.

"As we consider altering the Treasury bail-out programme to provide cash and assistance to the domestic auto-manufacturers, I'm concerned that, once again, we're about to employ the 'ready, fire, aim' approach to problem-solving," he said.

Republican critics say the larger financial crisis is not the only reason why the biggest US carmakers are in trouble.

They say that the Ford, GM and Chrysler's production was inefficient, and that their labour costs were higher than many of their foreign rivals.

Mr Wagoner said that despite some public perceptions that GM was not keeping pace with the times "we were well on the road to turning our North American business around".

"What exposes us to failure now is the global financial crisis, which has severely restricted credit availability and reduced industry sales to the lowest per-capita level since World War II," he said.

Economic impact

Car executives argue that the failure of the industry would have a catastrophic impact, with three million jobs lost within the first year.

Ford's president, Alan Mulally, said a failure at even one car company would have widespread consequences.

"The industry is so interdependent," he said.

"We're nearly 10% of the US GDP, and if one of the automobile manufacturers gets into serious trouble, it has just tremendous implications for the entire industry."

Congressional leaders are working behind the scenes in an effort to work out a compromise that could give some financial aid to the carmakers before the end of the year, but the outlook remains poor.

In an earlier hearing on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson also resisted diverting funds to the US car industry.

Democrats have so far rejected the option favoured by the White House and Republicans, which is to let the industry use a $25bn loan programme designed to help the companies develop more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The hearings are due to continue later on Wednesday.

Pakistan asks IMF for rescue loan

Pakistan has asked for a loan package from the International Monetary Fund worth at least $7.6bn (£5.1bn), its top economic adviser has said.

Shaukat Tarin, adviser to the prime minister, said the loan would stave off the country's balance of payments crisis and stabilise the economy.

Pakistan needs the money in order to avoid defaulting on international debt.

It had been exploring other sources of funds in order to avoid stringent IMF conditions but failed to find a deal.

Speaking at a news conference in Karachi, Mr Tarin said Pakistan would apply formally for the loan next week.

The government stands to receive $4bn this year as part of the 23-month IMF deal, the AFP news agency reports. It will start repaying the loan in 2011.

Flight of capital

In the past, Pakistani officials have said the IMF would be their last option due to its unpopularity at home


But Islamabad was left with few options faced with the need swiftly to raise billions of dollars in foreign loans to meet debt payments and pay for imports.

The Pakistani economy has grown by 7% to 8% over the last few years, but most of this growth has taken place in sectors such as consumer financing.

By 2006, trade imbalances because of high imports caused the economy to slow down; a subsequent rise in international prices of food and oil worsened the situation.

This led to a fall in the value of the Pakistani rupee and a flight of capital from the country.

IMF conditions entail cutbacks on the size of the government, development expenditure and some politically important subsidies.

Following the recent global financial turmoil, the IMF has agreed loans to several nations to support their economies, among them Ukraine, Hungary and Iceland.

Summit pledge to 'restore growth'

World leaders at the G20 financial summit in Washington have pledged to work together to restore global growth.

They said they were determined to work together to achieve "needed reforms" in the world's financial systems.

US President George W Bush said that finance ministers would now work on detailed reform proposals, and then report back.

Leaders of emerging economies said the summit marked a historic shift of power away from the richer countries.

Mr Bush's successor in the White House, Barack Obama, said in a statement that he was ready to work "together on these challenges" with the G20 when he takes office in January.

"The president-elect believes that the G20 summit... is an important opportunity to seek a coordinated response to the global financial crisis," said a statement issued in his name.

The meeting brought together leading industrial powers, such as the US, Japan and Germany, and also emerging market countries such as China, India, Argentina, Brazil and others - representing 85% of the world economy.

Summit agreements

For the leading emerging economies, the significance of this G20 summit was clear - they now have to be taken into consideration in the management of the global economy.

Brazil's President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said: "We are talking about the G20 because the G8 doesn't have any more reason to exist."

Key issues agreed by world leaders at this summit included:

reform of international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
an agreement by the end of 2008, leading to a successful global free-trade deal
improvements to financial market transparency and ensuring complete and accurate disclosure by firms of their financial conditions
making sure banks and financial institutions' incentives "prevent excessive risk taking"
asking finance ministers to draw-up a list of financial institutions whose collapse would endanger the global economic system
strengthening countries' financial regulatory regimes
taking a "fresh look" at rules that govern market manipulation and fraud.
In his address at the end of the summit, Mr Bush said there was no doubt that the financial crisis facing the United States and many other countries was a severe one.

He said it had even been conceivable that the US "could go into a depression greater than the Great Depression".

"We are adapting our financial systems to the realities of the 21st century," he said.

Speaking after the summit, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the group had reached important conclusions "about trade, about financial stability and about the expansion of our economies".

'Market principles'

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the global financial structures created at the end of WWII were now inadequate

It will be necessary to rebuild the whole international financial architecture, make it open and fair, effective and legitimate".

The stalled Doha round of global trade talks should be pushed forward so that a basic agreement can be reached before President Bush leaves office in January, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"If there is the political will, it would be good if we could reach an agreement in the Doha round with the present US administration."

In their joint closing statement, leaders said the reforms would only be successful, if they were "grounded in a commitment to free market principles".

G20 leaders say they will meet again by 30 April, 2009, to review progress.

The next summit looks set to be held in London, with US President-elect Obama attending.

Although no formal decision has been announced, France's President, Nicholas Sarkozy, made it clear that he expects London to be chosen as the venue.

The G20 group of countries consists of 19 leading industrialised and developing countries, as well as the European Union.

More developing countries turning to WB for help: Zoellick

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Tuesday that in the past few weeks more developing countries are turning to the World Bank for help, a sign that more countries are now being hit by the global financial crisis.

Zoellick said the Bank is now estimating that global trade, the lifeblood of economies will drop for the first time since 1982 due to global credit strains.



The World Bank on Tuesday sharply cut its growth forecast for developing countries to 4.6 percent for next year, from 6.4 percent projected in June, due to a combination of financial turmoil, slower exports and weaker commodity prices.



Zoellick said the World Bank's war chest could allow it to commit up to $100 billion in new lending to emerging economies over the next three years.



It could also provide up to $42 billion in grants and low-interest loans to poorer countries who may not be directly hit by the financial crisis but will feel the effects of a slowing global economy, he added

No cut in fuel prices now -Deora

The Government will consider reducing petrol and diesel prices once rupee-dollar parity and crude oil stabilise at levels sustainable to public sector oil companies, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said.

"Prime Minister has already said this, and I don't need to repeat that we cannot reduce prices just now because the oil companies are losing heavily," Deora said.



The rupee-dollar rate and international crude oil prices continue to be volatile and it would not be prudent to cut prices during such times, he said.



"We wanted to reduce prices but the rupee depreciation against the US dollar made things difficult," Deora said.



Indian rupee has depreciated 20 per cent against the greenback since April.



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier this week stated that the Government would wait for public sector oil companies to break even on fuel sales before considering a price cut.



International crude oil prices have slid from an all-time high of USD 147 to USD 60 a barrel, but public sector oil companies continue to make losses on sale of diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene.



Though Indian Oil Corp, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum have started making profit on sale of petrol, they lose about Rs 155 crore per day on sale of other three products.



Oil firms make a profit of Rs 4.12 a litre on petrol but lose Rs 0.96 on every litre of diesel, Rs 22.40 per litre on kerosene and Rs 343.49 per LPG cylinder.



Deora said a second tranche of oil bonds for the state oil firms was expected next week. "There were differences over calculation of revenue loss. Finance Minister P Chidambaram is very cooperative and I hope more bonds will be issued next

week."



IOC, BPCL and HPCL were earlier this week issued oil bonds worth Rs 22,000 crore to compensate them for half of the revenue loss on sale of petrol, diesel, domestic LPG and kerosene in the first quarter of this year.



Parliament had last month approved issue of oil bonds worth Rs 65,942 crore to cover for half of the losses the oil companies incurred on fuel sale during January to September period in 2008.



They were to get Rs 14,956.17 crore worth of oil bonds for selling fuel below cost in January-March quarter.



An additional Rs 24,408 crore compensation for April-June quarter was to be given.



About Rs 22,000 crore worth of oil bonds were expected for July-September quarter.





However, the Finance Ministry has issued only Rs 22,000 crore worth of oil bonds.



Government compensates half of the losses the firms incur on sale of four products through issue of oil bonds.



The three companies were given assurance of bonds issue on paper which they account in their books of accounts.



Yet, IOC posted its largest-ever net loss of Rs 7,047.13 crore in July-September quarter.



BPCL posted a net loss of Rs 2,625.17 crore in the second quarter on top of Rs 1,066.70 crore in April-June, while HPCL reported a loss of Rs 888.12 crore in Q1 and another Rs 3,218.92 crore in Q2.



"If prices keep on going down, we can explore these possibilities (of reducing prices)," the Prime Minister had said.



State-run IOC, BPCL and HPCL are projected to lose Rs 1,28,135 crore in revenues on fuel sales this fiscal.



IOC, BPCL and HPCL lost Rs 92,853 crore on fuel sales (audited figures) in April-September and they are projected to lose Rs 35,282 crore in the second half of 2008-09 fiscal.

Rupee drops by another 57 paise against USD in early trade

The Indian rupee on Wednesday dropped further by 57 paise to 48.68/69 against the US currency in late morning deals following sustained weakness in equity markets and expectations of more capital outflows.

In active trade on the Interbank Foreign Exchange (forex) market, the local unit resumed sharply lower at 48.45/47 a dollar and dipped further to quote at 48.68/69 in late morning deals.



On Tuesday, the rupee had tumbled by 73 paise. It moved in a range of 48.44 and 48.81 in early trade.



Forex dealers attributed weakness in the rupee to bearish equity markets.



Indian benchmark Sensex on Wednesday was down by over 74 points at 1030 hrs while most of the Asian indices were also trading in negative terrain on the back of fall on Wall Street on Tuesday night.



Expectations of more capital outflows due to sustained sluggishness in stock markets amid prolonged global economic slowdown.



Fall in the collections of excise duty and customs duties during October 2008 also displayed possibility of losing pace in the domestic economic growth, which also partly on the rupee sentiment.

Panasonic aims to take over Sanyo

Japanese electronic rivals Panasonic and Sanyo are starting alliance talks, which could result in Panasonic taking over the smaller company.

Panasonic said it wanted to make Sanyo its subsidiary, effectively creating Japan's largest electronics maker.

Panasonic may be interested in Sanyo's green energy businesses, such as solar panels and batteries.

Sanyo has been facing problems in recent years, cutting thousands of jobs and selling unprofitable operations.

"Panasonic and Sanyo will start discussions with the aim of maximizing both companies' corporate values by pursuing synergies between both companies," Panasonic president Fumio Ohtsubo and Sanyo president Seiichiro Sano said in a statement.

This week, Sanyo reported a 67% drop in its July-September profit to 4.4bn yen ($44m, £29m) due to a stronger yen, rising material costs and falling gadget prices.

The same factors also contributed to a drop in Panasonic profit of 16% to 55.5bn yen for the same period.

But Panasonic is less dependent on exports to the USA than Sanyo, a factor which has helped it do better than some other rivals in Japan.

"The current environment will allow Panasonic to buy Sanyo at a relatively cheap price with few competitive bids," said Seiichi Suzuki, a market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities.

The two companies have historical ties, with their founders being brothers-in-law.