World Business Quick Take

■ Stocks
LSE to open HK office
The London Stock Exchange will set up an Asia-Pacific office in Hong Kong in hopes of attracting listings from mainland Chinese companies, Hong Kong's pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po newspaper reported yesterday. The London market has straightforward listing procedures that are especially suitable for small- and medium-sized Chinese enterprises, the paper quoted the exchange's Asia-Pacific president Zhu Xiaojian as saying. Speaking at an investment forum in Fujian, Zhu said Hong Kong is a good place for the London exchange to tap into the booming Chinese market. Chinese enterprises raised a total of 23 billion euro (US$19 billion) through overseas listing last year. The Hong Kong office will open by early Novem-ber, Zhu was quoted as saying.

■ Semiconductors
Intel lures Samsung VP
Intel on Tuesday that it was hiring a top Samsung official as vice president of the world's largest chip maker and leading manufacturer of computer products. Eric Kim, who has extensive branding, consumer and product marketing exper-ience, would be Intel's pointman for marketing operations worldwide, an Intel statement said. His duties would include global branding, advertising, cooperative marketing and market research, as well as Internet and channel marketing programs. The 50-year-old Kim, who will join Intel on Nov. 15, was executive vice president and head of global mar-keting and new business development in the digital convergence area in Sam-sung Electronics Co. During Kim's tenure, Samsung attained the status of the world's fastest-growing brands. In 2002, Time magazine selected Kim for its annual "Global Influen-tials" list.

■ Automobiles
BMW overtaking Mercedes
BMW on course to overtake annual sales of arch-rival Mercedes for the first time in almost a decade, new figures showed on Tuesday. The day after the Mercedes group said its global sales had fallen just under 5 percent so far this year to 760,300, its south German competitor posted an 8 percent jump in the first eight months of this year to 769,086. The mixed fortunes enjoyed by Ger-many's leading upmarket car makers were highlighted by sales last month in their domestic market, with Mercedes down 18 percent to 24,500 and BMW up 20 percent, despite the sluggish economy. Even though Mercedes sales fell last month for the seventh month this year, the firm said its global sales should approach last year's 1.1 million. But BMW said it expected to surpass last year's total by just under 10 percent. The last time BMW outsold Mercedes was in 1995.

■ Banking
Quattrone faces sentencing
Frank Quattrone, the master dealmaker of the 1990s technology stock boom, faces a likely prison sen-tence, four months after he was convicted of obstruc-ting a federal investigation. The 48-year-old former investment banker, con-victed of two counts of obstruction and a single count of witness tampering, faces 10 to 16 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines. His sentence was expected to be handed down yesterday. He would be the highest-profile Wall Street figure to face time behind bars since junk-bond king Michael Milken in 1990.