Porsche not planning now to raise VW stake: paper

(Reuters) - The federal law guarantees special rights for the German state of Lower Saxony, where VW's headquarters in Wolfsburg are located, as a shareholder as well as preventing any one individual investor from exercising more than 20 percent of their voting rights.




Wolfgang Porsche did not deny that the Porsche and Piech families who control the sports car maker were immune to the idea of controlling VW itself, effectively founded in 1937 by Beetle designer and family patriarch Ferdinand Porsche.


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RPT-Bay Street Week Ahead - Offshore sirens beckon

(Reuters) - VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 29 - As foreign
takeovers and private equity buyouts strip the Toronto Stock
Exchange of some of its biggest names, institutional investors
are increasingly shifting their gaze outside Canada.




Those investors with mandates to invest domestically, such
as "pure" Canadian mutual funds, say they might at some point
ask their fundholders to let them rejig their limits so that
they too can follow their peers to greater choice offshore.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

UPDATE 9-Japan PM says to stay despite huge election defeat

(Reuters) - TOKYO, July 29 - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe's conservative ruling camp suffered a devastating defeat in
upper house elections on Sunday, but the 52-year-old conservative
said he intended to stay in his post despite the drubbing.




"I am determined to carry out my promises although the
situation is severe," Abe said, after acknowledging that he was
responsible for the huge loss.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Egypt's El Sewedy H1 net profit rises 32 pct

(Reuters) - Egypt's El Sewedy Cables posted a 32 percent rise in consolidated net profit to 337 million Egyptian pounds in the first half of 2007, the stock exchange said on Sunday.

Net profit in the year-ago period was 256 million pounds.


Read more at Reuters Africa

Shanghai Auto tie-up may create Chinese car champion

(Reuters) - Shanghai Automotive Co. said on Friday that parent groups of the two companies had signed a letter of intent to discuss ways of achieving a "complete union" between the firms through business cooperation and restructuring.




China's central government and local authorities are pushing the tie-up as a way to build Shanghai Auto into a comprehensive auto maker that can compete with European, Japanese and U.S. giants at home and eventually overseas, industry sources and analysts said.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

France's Renault, India's Bajaj in initial talks

(Reuters) - "If concluded favourably, this could lead to a long-term
partnership between Renault and Bajaj for the development of the
business so conceived," it said.




On Thursday, a Renault spokeswoman said the company had
contacted Bajaj about a $3,000 car but no decision had been
taken.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

U.S. Stocks Drop, Giving S&P 500 Worst Weekly Loss Since 2002; Alcoa Falls

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks tumbled, giving the
Standard & Poor's 500 Index its steepest weekly drop in 4 1/2
years, after turmoil among borrowers prompted investors to flee
riskier assets.

The S&P 500 lost the most since September 2002, while the
Dow Jones Industrial Average's weekly slump was the biggest since
March 2003. Chrysler and Alliance Boots Plc failed to find buyers
for $20 billion of buyout loans, fueling concern the engine that
drove stocks to all-time highs -- a record pace of takeovers --
will sputter.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News