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World Business Quick Take

■ Electronics
LG's Q4 profit down 85%
Fourth-quarter profit at LG Electronics Co, South Korea's largest consumer appliance maker, plunged 85 percent amid falling sales and declining prices for flat-screen televisions, the company said yesterday. LG said it earned 48.2 billion won (US$51.2 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31, down sharply from the same quarter a year ago, the company said in a statement. Sales fell 11 percent to 5.52 trillion won.

■ Fashion
Gap looking for new CEO
US casual clothing retailer Gap Inc announced that its chief executive officer Paul Pressler was stepping down on Monday, saying it was beginning a search for a new CEO. Pressler's departure comes after two other senior managers left the firm earlier this month after the retailer reported disappointing Christmas sales. Pressler could be eligible for up to US$14 million in severance benefits, based on the terms of his 2002 employment contract with Gap. The retailer, which has some 3,100 stores in the US, the UK, France and Japan, announced Pressler's departure shortly after posting lower sales last month.

■ Semiconductors
Sun to use Intel chips
Sun Microsystems announced a "broad strategic alliance" with Intel on Monday to tailor Solaris business operating systems to Xeon computer chips. The alliance of the two Silicon Valley firms came as a coup for Intel, which will be supplying computer chips for Sun Systems that had previously been the exclusive terrain of rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). "Sun simply shipping AMD systems misses the Intel opportunity," Sun chief executive Jonathan Schwartz said in a Webcast press conference. "We want Solaris to absolutely scream on Xeon; to blow everyone else in the marketplace away."

■ Computers
Dell opens business center
US computer maker Dell Inc yesterday opened its first global business center outside the US to provide 24-hour engineering and technology support to its branches worldwide. Chief executive officer Kevin Rollins opened the 18,580m2 center in Malaysia's high-tech city of Cyberjaya. Dell says the center will employ 600 people by the end of the year and 1,000 within five years. The center will mostly provide internal support to Dell offices in countries around the world, not so much customer support, Rollins said. It will also include process design facilities, software development and local sales and marketing. Dell has operated a manufacturing operation in Penang since 1995, producing notebooks, desktop computers, servers and storage systems.

■ Oil
BNP to finance refinery
French bank BNP Paribas has reached an agreement with Vietnam's finance ministry to a 13-year US$300 million deal to build the country's first oil refinery, official sources said yesterday. The amount "is part of the US$1 billion that the Ministry of Finance is responsible for arranging and mobilizing for the Dung Quat oil refinery according to the assignment by the government," a bank official said. The signing ceremony should be set up soon, he said. The total project, which is considered a major step towards energy autonomy for the communist nation, is expected to cost the state-owned PetroVietnam around US$2.5 billion.

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