World Business Quick Take

■ Japan
Bank in cellphone venture
Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank, will invest ¥25 billion (US$225 million) in a mobile-phone venture planned by Japanese broadband services firm eAccess, a report said yesterday. The US financial group will invest the funds in eAccess mobile-phone subsidiary eMobile, Japanese business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. It will also provide business support in such areas as obtaining property for base stations and supplying content offerings. Following the report, eAccess issued a statement saying: "Although it is true that eMobile is talking with Goldman Sachs on the topic, the two have yet to reach a final agreement."

■ China
GE eyes stake in bank
General Electric Co (GE) plans to buy a 7 percent stake in China's Shenzhen Development Bank in the latest foreign strategic investment in China's increasingly competitive banking market, reports said yesterday. Through the purchase, valued at about US$100 million, GE Consumer Finance hopes to gain entry into China's developing personal-loan market, while the Chinese bank would gain much-needed capital and expertise, the reports said. The two sides held a signing ceremony for the deal at Beijing's International Club on Wednesday, the state-run China Securities Journal and other newspapers reported. On Tuesday, Swiss bank UBS AG announced a 645 million Swiss francs (US$500 million) investment in state-owned Bank of China to create a partnership in investment banking and securities services.

■ United States
Did FedEx discriminate?
A federal judge certified a class-action discrimination lawsuit targeting FedEx Corp amid allegations that the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, skipped them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations. The case includes an estimated 10,000 current and former hourly workers and about 1,000 low-level management employees in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming and parts of Texas. James Finberg, an attorney representing the class, said FedEx normally promotes from within, yet three times the number of package handlers and loaders are minorities compared to drivers, who earn more. Twice the number of minorities fail promotional tests than do whites, Finberg said.

■ Internet
Google heads for space
Internet firm Google on Wednesday announced plans to construct a huge new corporate campus at a NASA base in the center of Silicon Valley. The campus will cement the seven-year-old company's future at the heart of the high-tech region, and allow it to continue adding to its payroll at its current rate of almost 100 employees per week without running out of space. The move was hailed by local experts as a huge boon to the region which has yet to post a solid recovery from the dotcom crash of 2000. They estimated that the 100,000m2 square complex would take about two years to build and cost some US$300 million. The agreement called for NASA and Google to cooperate on a variety of areas.