A round-up of today's other stories in brief

Merck beats Wall Street profit forecast

Drug company Merck reported slightly higher fourth-quarter profit yesterday, beating Wall Street forecasts, on cost-cutting and strong demand for its asthma and cholesterol medicines.

The drugmaker, which stood by its previous forecast for 2006 results, also announced the addition of $295 million (€242.7 million) to legal defense costs related to the withdrawal of its Vioxx arthritis treatment.

Merck's net earnings were $1.12 billion compared with $1.10 billion in the 2004 quarter.

Rival drugmaker Wyeth, meanwhile, reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings, weighed down by lower sales of its Effexor depression drug and sharply higher research costs. Wyeth earned $731.7 million compared with a year-earlier loss of $1.76 billion. - (Reuters)

Porsche bond raises €2.8bn

Luxury carmaker Porsche has raised €2.8 billion in the largest ever corporate bond issue to be quoted on the Irish Stock Exchange.

The company raised the funds through it IFSC-based treasury subsidiary, Porsche International Financing. The bonds will be jointly listed in Dublin and Stuttgart in Germany from today.

They represent the largest fund-raising in the world by a corporate entity without a credit rating.

Porsche International Financing managing director John Gilsenan said the finance would be used in part to replace a €300 million issue dating from 2002. The remainder will support liquidity in light of Porsche's recent €3 billion purchase of 18.53 per cent of Volkswagen.

IAWS concern sees rise in sales

Hiestand, the Swiss baker in which IAWS has a 32 per cent stake, has reported a 13.1 per cent uplift in sales for 2005. The firm recorded full-year revenues of 449.6 million Swiss francs (€289 million), boosted by good growth in both Asia and Europe.

Hiestand's board of directors and group executive committee said they were "very confident" of reaching their earnings targets for last year.

Publishers target search engines

Newspapers and magazines are threatening to take action against internet search engines that use their content without paying fair compensation.

A task force of global and European publishers organisations, led by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), has agreed to work together to examine the options open to publishers to assert their rights to "recognition and recompense".

A statement from WAN said the group would examine whether new standards and policies could be drafted to formalise the commercial relationship between publishers and the search engines.

German recovery runs into trouble

German unemployment soared above the politically sensitive five million mark and retail sales unexpectedly dropped, according data released yesterday, undermining hopes of a broad recovery in Europe's largest economy.

The headline number of Germans out of work in January rose by 408,000 to 5.012 million, the highest level since April. The seasonally adjusted total pushed up 69,000 to 4.699 million, confounding economists' forecast for a drop of 20,000.

Retail sales for December also defied the consensus for an improvement, falling 1.4 per cent month-on-month and 1.6 per cent from a year earlier. - (Reuters)