Business and City in Brief

HEADS ROLL AT HAFNIA

The troubled Danish insurer Hafnia Holding has dismissed three senior executives in connection with its internal inquiry into irregular share transactions which brought the group close to receivership last week.

The dismissal of a deputy director and two senior executives follows the sacking of the company's deputy general manager last week. Hafnia said the fraud police were now investigating all four men's involvement in the affair. It did not name them.

MOLINS SETTLES

Molins, the cigarette machine maker, has reached a settlement with Cincinnati-Milacron, a leading defendant in its US patent infringement lawsuit over its flexible manufacturing systems. Molins said litigation would continue against Kearney & Trecker, now owned by Giddings & Lewis, and a number of German machine tool suppliers.

AIRBUS CHIEF QUITS

Airbus Industrie said the president and chief executive officer of its Airbus Industrie of North America unit, James Bryan Junior, had resigned. Alan Boyd, currently chairman, will assume the chief executive post.

SPANISH CARS

General Motors' Spanish arm is considering building a production plant in the northern region of the Basque country.

AUSTRALIAN CUT

National Australia Bank is to cut its benchmark lending reference rate to 9.75 from 10.25 per cent from Monday.

PAPER CLEARANCE

The acquisition of the Lonrho subsidiary Scottish & Universal Newspapers by Trinity International Holdings has been cleared by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

BROKERS ACT

Share brokers in Dusseldorf have started legal proceedings to stop the Frankfurt bourse introducing a computerised order routing system in October.

SWISS STOCKS

Credit Suisse is to start trading in 14 Swiss stocks on Seaq International on Monday.

'KEEP DUNKEL'

(First Edition)

The 103 nations in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade have asked Arthur Dunkel to stay on as director-general until July 1993, extending his contract from the end of this year.

WORLD MARKETS

NEW YORK: Shares moved narrowly in light, hesitant trading. The Dow Jones average ended the day up 6.48 points at 3,330.56.

TOKYO: The market slipped again after its two-day rise, with the Nikkei average closing 64.94 points lower at 16,783.72.

HONG KONG: Bargain-hunters lifted the Hang Seng index 55.84 points to 5,981.36, erasing most of Thursday's losses.

SYDNEY: Narrow-range trading ended with the All Ordinaries index up 2.3 points at 1,644.4.

JOHANNESBURG: Blue chips cut the week's losses, with both gold and industrial stocks firmer and the overall index 35 points better at 3,483.

PARIS: The CAC-40 eased 2.4 points to 1,859.44 in thin trade ahead of the four-day weekend.

FRANKFURT: In a lifeless session the DAX eased 3.16 to 1,754.48.

ZURICH: Selective buying in dollar-related stocks helped the index to 1,169.3, an 8.2-point gain.

MILAN: Short-covering took the MIB up 1.65 per cent to 864.

LONDON: Report, page 19.