Print

Mail

wiki links

World Business Quick Take

■ Banking
Loan requests rise in US
US banks reported an increase in demand for business loans for the first time in four years as companies grow more confident in the expanding economy, a Federal Reserve survey showed. Demand for commercial real estate loans in the last three months also increased for the first time since 2000, while home mortgage demand cooled, according to the survey last month of senior loan officers at 56 domestic and 21 foreign banks. "For the first time since early 2000, domestic survey respondents noted that the demand for C&I [commercial and industrial] loans had strengthened," the Fed said. "The most important reasons for the strengthening of loan demand over the past three months were increased customer investment in plant and equipment and increased customer needs to finance accounts and inventories."

■ Automobiles
Japanese cars most reliable
Japanese cars are the most reliable vehicles on the road with Toyota taking the 31 top places in several vehicle categories, a long-term study by Germany's largest automobile association ADAC shows. In the 25-year study of break-down statistics on German roads Mercedes took the second position in reliability with 25 top positions. Fiat cars were at the bottom of the list in 19 vehicle categories, the ADAC said. Opel, Renault and Citroen also achieved low marks in reliability. In total, Japanese manufacturers reached 54 top positions compared to 53 by the European competitors, the ADAC found. Among the 104 losers there was only one Japanese car -- the Honda Civic. The ADAC said the reliability of Japanese cars could be attributed to the thorough preparation before the market introduction of a new model.

■ Telecoms
Sprint hires IBM
Sprint Corp, the No. 3 US long-distance telephone company, hired International Business Machines (IBM) Corp to run customer service at Sprint's mobile-phone unit, people familiar with the matter said. About 2,500 Sprint jobs will be transferred to IBM. The contract, to be announced tomorrow, probably will save Overland Park, Kansas-based Sprint as much as US$3 billion in the next few years and hand IBM a similar amount of revenue, two people said. Sprint is moving parts of its business to IBM in part to improve service and cut costs at its loss-making PCS wireless unit, the fourth-largest mobile carrier, the people said. AT&T Corp, the largest long-distance provider, last year handed management of some customer-service operations to Accenture Ltd, a competitor to IBM.

■ Internet
Shanda appoints new head
China's largest online gaming company said yesterday it had appointed the head of Microsoft China as its new president. Tang Jun replaces Chen Tianqiao as president of Shanda Networking. Chen will remain chairman and chief executive officer. Tang, who worked for Microsoft for 10 years, is expected to bring the experience gained at the software giant to lead Shanda into a new era of interactive entertainment, Chen said in a statement. His successor has yet to be named, a spokeswoman for Microsoft China said. Tang's appointment is a part of Shanda's management reorganization before a planned initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

This story has been viewed 2605 times.