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World Business Quick Take

■ REAL ESTATE

US foreclosures set record

US home foreclosures spiked to a record high between July and September as a national housing downturn worsened, a survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) on Thursday showed. The MBA projects that 1.5 million homes will be repossessed this year. "Conditions in the housing finance market continue to deteriorate," the MBA's chief economist Doug Duncan said. The percentage of home loans in the foreclosure process was 1.69 percent of all home loans outstanding at the end of the third quarter, the MBA said. The rate jumped from 1.40 percent in the second quarter. "The rate of foreclosure starts and the percent of loans in the process of foreclosure are at the highest levels ever," the MBA said.



■ JAPAN

Economic growth slows

Japan's economy grew less than originally thought in the third quarter because of a downward revision in corporate capital investment, the government said yesterday. The economy expanded at a 1.5 percent annual pace in the July-September quarter, worse than the preliminary estimate of 2.6 percent, figures released by the Cabinet Office showed. "Inventories were a big contributor to the downward revision to the GDP," Minister of Economic Policy Hiroko Ota said at a regular press conference. "Capital expenditure also negatively affected" the data. The government also revised its figures for the April-June quarter to show the economy had contracted 1.8 percent versus 1.6 percent as originally reported.



■ JAPAN

Cartel to shut down

Japan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday that tire-maker Bridgestone Corp and four foreign companies had been operating a cartel in the sales of rubber marine hoses. The commission plans to issue an administrative order to the companies to end the cartel, which aims to raise prices of hoses for use in transporting crude oil from tankers to storage, a FTC official said. It will be the first such order to foreign companies to end a cartel, he said. The four other companies are Dunlop Oil and Marine of Britain, a unit of Trelleborg of Sweden, and Parker ITR and Manuli Rubber Industries of Italy.



■ BEVERAGES

Coca-Cola CEO to retire

The Coca-Cola Company said on Thursday that chief executive Neville Isdell will step down in the middle of next year after four years and will be succeeded by his No. 2, Muhtar Kent. The transition at the top of the world's largest beverages company will take place on July 1. The company said its board had approved Isdell's recommendation "for an evolution of the company's leadership structure." The statement did not say why Isdell, 64, was relinquishing the chief executive post. After a long career with Coca-Cola, he returned to the company from retirement in June 2004 as chief executive and chairman.



■ AVIATION

Boeing mulls next `737'

Boeing Co will decide on a plan to replace its popular 737 aircraft by 2012 at the latest, spokeswoman Sandy Anger said on Thursday. The company started seriously considering a successor for the 737 last year. Anger said Boeing "must ensure it has the right set of breakthrough technologies in engines, aerodynamics, materials and other systems" to top the 737's efficiency. She said a replacement for the 737 "sometime in the middle of the next decade -- give or take a couple of years.
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