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World Business Quick Take

■ TECHNOLOGY
Tata eyes German market
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) of India wants to use Germany as a base to become one of the top 10 IT companies in Europe, vice-chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran said yesterday. "We have three priorities in Europe," Chandrasekaran told the Financial Times Deutschland. "Germany, Germany, Germany." Starting with the biggest European market, TCS intends to expand across the continent, he said. "We want to be among the top 10 suppliers" of IT services in Europe, Chandrasekaran said, without identifying a timeframe. The biggest Indian IT company is part of the sprawling Tata conglomerate. Its parent group is known in Europe for the takeover early this year of the Anglo-Dutch steel group Corus.

■ AUTOMOBILES
Berlin property for sale
German carmaker DaimlerChrysler wants to sell property on the Postdamer Platz in central Berlin worth approximately 1.5 billion euros (US$2.1 billion), a report said yesterday. DaimlerChrysler has hired US investment bank Merrill Lynch to search for a buyer, the Financial Times Deutschland quoted industrial sources as saying. Sony is also seeking to sell a building it owns on the iconic square that reflects the history of modern Germany, the paper said, adding that the Japanese company hopes to earn between 600 million and 700 million euros from the sale.

■ FINANCE
IMF chief shows optimism
New IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Monday the crisis in the US "subprime" loan sector should not have a dramatic impact on growth in the world economy. "The bases of world growth today are solid bases," he told a news conference, the first since being named on Friday as managing director of the IMF. "I think the situation is now under control," said the former French finance minister who is to take over from Spaniard Rodrigo Rato on Nov. 1. He however cautioned that the crisis was not yet "solved."

■ MINING
Coal companies on auction
ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, is to bid for two Russian coal companies located in eastern Siberia that are being auctioned off at a starting price of US$1.84 billion, the Kommersant newspaper reported yesterday. Also in the running for the companies, which are being sold off by local authorities in the Yakuty region, are the Russian mining groups Mechel and Alrosa, the paper said. The bidding will be for 75 percent minus one share in the Yakutugol company and 68.86 percent in Elgaugol. Kommersant said the winner of the auction would be required to invest several billion dollars in the sites, a condition that has discouraged several potential buyers.

■ BANKING
HSBC bid faces probe
South Korea's corporate watchdog said yesterday it would look into legal issues surrounding banking giant HSBC's planned purchase of a bank amid a battle over the domestic lender's previous sale to a US hedge fund. British-based HSBC Plc last month agreed to buy a 51.02 percent stake in the Korea Exchange Bank, the country's sixth largest lender, for US$6.3 billion in cash from US private equity fund Lone Star. South Korea's Fair Trade Commission, however, said in a statement that it planned to "carefully review" the legal issues in the deal.


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