■OIL
Libya warns on high prices
Libya’s OPEC representative warned on the eve of a meeting of the cartel yesterday that the oil exporter group should be careful not to burden the recession-hit world economy with high energy prices. “We think they [prices] are low, but they will improve. But ... we should not make it more difficult for the world economy [by driving prices higher],” said Shukri Ghanem, the head of Libya’s National Oil Co. Prices have doubled since their lows in December last year and hit six-month highs on Wednesday of about US$63 a barrel. The 12-member OEPC met in Vienna yesterday and was expected to hold its output target steady at 24.84 million barrels a day.
■TOYS
FAO Schwarz sold
Toys R Us Inc said it had purchased FAO Schwarz, one of the oldest toy retailers in the US. CEO and chairman Jerry Storch announced the acquisition of the high-end store in a news release early yesterday. Toys R Us will operate FAO Schwarz’s flagship store in New York and a second store at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. FAO Schwarz’s Web site and catalog will continue to use the company’s name. Storch declined to release financial details of the agreement. FAO Schwarz was established in 1862 and was immortalized in the 1988 Tom Hanks movie Big. The toy retailer filed for bankruptcy protection twice in 2003. It was purchased by D.E. Shaw group in 2004.
■SYSTEMS
Ericsson buys Turkish firm
Swedish wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson AB said yesterday it had bought all the shares in the Turkish systems integration company Bizitek for an undisclosed sum. Ericsson said it would take Bizitek’s 116 employees as part of the acquisition. Bizitek, which specializes in the field of business support systems, can give Ericsson an additional competence to provide solutions in business support systems for charging, provisioning, billing and customer relations management, the Swedish firm said. The integration of the firm into Ericsson is expected to be completed within 12 months.
■STEEL
POSCO obtains price cuts
South Korea’s top steelmaker POSCO said yesterday it had negotiated a cut in iron ore prices of between 33 percent and 44 percent with Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. The reduction, which will be applied retroactively from last month, is similar to an earlier agreement between Rio Tinto and Japan’s Nippon Steel, but not as deep as the 40 percent to 45 percent drop requested by Chinese steelmakers. POSCO, the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker, said it would buy iron ore for US$58.20 to US$68.90 per tonne. The group, which imports up to 50 million tonnes of iron ore annually, has been in talks with major suppliers including BHP Billiton of Australia and Brazil’s Vale about prices for the current contract year.
■TELECOMS
Text translator offered
Wot r ur kids txting? If you’re wondering — or 1dering — there’s a new online translation tool that helps decipher the code. Mobile phone maker LG Electronics MobileComm USA has launched “DTXTR,” a Web service that translates teen text speech into plain English. Plug in text shortcuts such as OMG! or 2G2BT and get back the translation — in this case “Oh my God!” and “too good to be true.” DTXTR includes a glossary of hundreds of definitions for shorthand text phrases, abbreviations and symbols.
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