Business and City in Brief

ROLLS LINKS WITH NATIONAL GRID

Reyrolle, part of the Rolls- Royce Industrial Power Group, and National Grid have formed a new company, International Power Systems, to bid for work on electricity transmission systems worldwide. Neither would make a projection of revenues.

In a separate development, Rolls said its Tay 650 engine would power eight Fokker 100 airliners for Midway Airlines in the US in a deal worth more than dollars 40m.

GOLD TAKES A BATH

Gold fell sharply in New York last night to dollars 367.40 an ounce, after closing in London at dollars 374.50, depressed by heavy fund account selling on US economic figures showing subdued inflation in July and a fall in the Commodity Research Bureau Index to five-week lows.

LENDING STANDSTILL

Total international lending grew by only dollars 50bn - or 1 per cent - in the first quarter, the Bank for International Settlements said in its quarterly analysis. There was a continued switch from bank lending to securities issues, though half of these were bought by banks.

COCOA BEANO

Cocoa prices could double to over pounds 1,500 a ton by the end of 1994 and soar to pounds 3,000 by the end of 1995, according to a forecast by GNI Research.

14m POUNDS LOWE BUYOUT

Lowe Alpine, the international outdoor pursuits group owned by Famco Holdings, has been bought by a management team led by Andrew Williamson in a pounds 14.4m deal.

PILKINGTON SALE

Pilkington and Nippon Sheet Glass agreed to NSG acquiring a 20 per cent shareholding in Triplex Safety Glass, Pilkington's UK automotive glazing subsidiary, for pounds 13.3m.

BAe SUSPENDS DEAL

British Aerospace stopped work under its long-running licence and technical co-operation deal with Romania's state aircraft maker for producing the BAC 1-11 passenger aircraft because its technical advisers were not being paid.

UK STEEL ON THE UP

Steel production in the UK averaged 299,200 tonnes a week in July, 4.2 per cent up on in the same period last year. Production in the first seven months improved 2.2 per cent to 321,000 tonnes.

SMURFIT ARM IN RED

JSC, Jefferson Smurfit Group's US associate, reported net losses of dollars 84.4m in the first half.

3.5m POUNDS DRINK-UP

Greenalls, the pubs operator, bought JP O'Brien, a drinks wholesaler, for pounds 3.5m.

THORNTON BUYOUT

(First Edition)

British Thornton Holdings, the engineering group, is buying Masterform Group, the display materials and clockmaker, for about 6.6m pounds via a placing and share offer.

WORLD MARKETS

NEW YORK: A downturn in bond prices and some profit- taking took the shine off shares. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 14.26. points down at 3,569.09.

FRANKFURT: The DAX index climbed to a three-year high on foreign buying, up 39.15 points, to 1,904.95.

ZURICH: Shares surged to record highs, boosted by stronger-than-expected interim results from UBS, hopes for lower interest rates and gains in Frankfurt.

PARIS: After setting another record in the afternoon, the CAC-40 index fell 5.52 points in volatile trading to 2,161.87.

BOMBAY: Stocks surged, with the 30-share index gaining 109.83 points to 2,490.79.

TOKYO: The Nikkei 225 index closed up 32.71 points at 20,765.28.

SYDNEY: The All Ordinaries index added 12.3 points to 1,873.3.

HONG KONG: The Hang Seng Index lost 18.08 to 7,339.55.

LONDON: Report, page 22.