Business & City in Brief

BAe set to rescue Taiwan deal

British Aerospace hopes to reach agreement today on financing for its pounds 250m joint venture with Taiwan Aerospace Corporation for the manufacture of regional jets.

Talks with the group of Taiwanese banks providing loans to the venture had run into trouble. But it is now thought that the problems can be overcome through the participation of foreign banks.

BT issues note

BT has confirmed the issue of a pounds 500m note due in 2003 with a coupon of 71 8 per cent, an issue price of 100.835 per cent and a re-offer price of 99.16 per cent. SG Warburg Securities and Lehman Bros are lead-managing the notes.

Lopez statement

Volkswagen's production chief, Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, said in a statement given to VW's supervisory board two and a half weeks ago that sensitive documents belonging to the rival car maker Adam Opel ended up in a VW guesthouse unintentionally. Mr Lopez has denied allegations by General Motors Corp's Opel unit of betraying company secrets when he joined VW in March.

F&C India fund

Foreign & Colonial Emerging Markets is launching an open-ended Luxembourg-based fund to invest in India - the first, it claims, to invest in medium-sized Indian growth companies.

Tobacco payout

Philip Morris, the tobacco and consumer products group, declared an unchanged regular quarterly dividend of 65 cents.

Cadbury in Poland

Cadbury Schweppes announced plans to build a chocolate and sweets factory at Wroclaw in Poland. The pounds 20m investment is intended to help develop the group's presence in the central and eastern European confectionery market.

Newcastle brewery

Scottish & Newcastle is to go ahead with the first phase of a new brewing and packaging development at its Tyne Brewery in Newcastle costing almost pounds 40m.

Holiday fraud

The former chairman and company secretary of a collapsed holiday firm appeared in court yesterday on fraud charges. Valere Tjolle, 48, and Theresa McDermott, 36, are accused of carrying on the business of Bath-based Land Travel and Beau Nash Studios with intent to defraud creditors. They were remanded on bail until 20 October.

Fixed increase

Nearly half of all mortgages taken out in the first quarter were fixed-rate loans, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. This was a dramatic rise over 1992 figures.

World Markets

New York: The Philip Morris decision not to lift its dividend failed to hold back the Dow Jones for long and it hit a record 3,652.09, up 13.13 points, at the close.

Tokyo: Prices closed higher in thin trade, with the Nikkei average 89.61 points ahead at 20,521.45.

Hong Kong: Concern over the tightening of mortgage lending continued to dampen sentiment. The Hang Seng index retreated 62.1 points to 7,265.58.

Sydney: The All Ordinaries eased 1.6 to 1,922.6 on light profit-taking.

Bombay: Reversing an early decline, the index finished 29.63 points higher at 2,685.03.

Johannesburg: Gold shares' downward drift deepened, but industrials made small gains. The overall index lost six points to 4,045.

Frankfurt: Hopes of cuts in key interest rates at today's Bundesbank council meeting sent the DAX index up 20.09 points to 1,917.78.

Paris: In a strong opening to the new account the CAC-40 index climbed 35.91 points to 2,159.31.

Milan: Shares rose 0.75 per cent on interest rate speculation.

Amsterdam: The EOE index finished just short of an all-time high at 358.47, a gain of 2.7 points.

London: Report, page 32.