Business Briefs

■ Investing
Police charge bank chairman
Moscow have brought charges against the board chairman of Renaissance Capital, one of Moscow's leading investment banks, his lawyer was quoted on Friday as saying by the Interfax news agency. The lawyer, Alex-ander Asnis, said that he been informed by a Moscow police inspector of charges against his client Oleg Kiselyov, who is undergoing medical treat-ment overseas, the agency reported. Asnis said he did not know what crimes his client was charged with and that police would acquaint him with the case tomorrow, according to the report. Interfax later quoted Kiselyov as denying the charges: "I learned with sur-prise from the media that I have been indicted in a case in which I have been involved only as a witness." The report did not give details on the case or say where Kiselyov was.

■ Motorbikes
Taiwanese firm seeks listing
A Taiwanese motorbike company wants its successful Vietnamese unit to list its shares overseas to attract new funds and expand production, a newspaper reported yesterday. At a board meeting in Taipei on Friday, Sanyang Industry Co (三陽) decided that its VMEP motorbike company in Vietnam should be listed abroad as Gold Way Investment company, a Chinese-language newspaper said. Sanyang has yet to decide in which countries VMEP will seek listing. Sanyang set up VMEP in 1992. The company has sold more than one million SYM motorbikes and accounts for more than 20 percent of Vietnam's motorbike market. "But due to Vietnam's restric-tions, Sanyang wants VMEP to seek a listing abroad so that it can have a freer hand in operation," the paper said.

■ Natural gas
Officials agree on pipeline
Alaskan agreed to key terms of a contract with one of three oil companies negotiating to build a 3,370km natural-gas pipeline from Alaska through Canada and into the US Midwest. ConocoPhillips agreed to provide Alaska with a fair share of the revenues, access to the gas and job preferences for Alaskans on the pipeline, among other demands, Governor Frank Murkowski said. "We're now one step closer to making an Alaska natural-gas pipeline a reality," said Jim Bowles, president of ConocoPhillips Alaska Inc. "The journey has just started." Terms of the agreement with ConocoPhillips won't be released because negotiations are continuing with BP and Exxon Mobil, Murkowski said. The pipeline would be the largest construction project ever undertaken in North America, Murkowski said.

■ Aviation
UAL stares down bankruptcy
United Airlines' bid to come out of bankruptcy early next year took an important step forward on Friday when a judge approved the disclosure statement that is a key part of its exit plan. US Bankruptcy Judge Eugene Wedoff said at the monthly bankruptcy hearing for UAL Corp, United's holding company, that he signed off on the statement Friday morning after the biggest objections to it had been withdrawn. The disclosure statement details the airline's plans for emerging from bankruptcy and outlines how creditors will be paid. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp, the federal corporation that insures pension plans, had objected to the plan's stipulation that requires a five-year waiting period before it can sell the UAL stock it is to receive as part of this year's settlement with United for terminating its employee pensions. The pension agency withdrew its objection this week.