A roundup of today's other business news in brief:

Irish property firm bought by UK rival

Property consultancy Ganly Walters has been bought by London-based company Knight Frank for an undisclosed sum.

Ganly Walters' managing director Paul McDowell and Robert Ganly will become proprietary partners in Knight Frank, which is a limited-liability partnership ranked fifth in the UK property services market in terms of turnover.

Ganly Walters traditionally operated in the country property sector, before developing the commercial side of its business in recent years.

Knight Frank said its involvement would allow the Ganly Walters business, which will operate as Knight Frank Ganly Walters, to focus further on the premium end of the Dublin residential market.

Fyffes chairman paid €668,000

Carl McCann, who resigned as executive chairman of Fyffes at the end of December, received a total remuneration package of €668,000 last year from the fruit distributor.

Fyffes's annual report, which was published yesterday, reveals that this compares to a package in excess of €1.5 million in 2005. However, the drop reflects the fact that Mr McCann was appointed executive chairman of Blackrock International Land following its demerger from Fyffes in May 2006, and so a portion of his employment costs for the year were recharged to Blackrock.

The current chief executive chairman of Fyffes, David McCann, received a total package of just over €800,000 in 2006, which included a €200,000 bonus. This is significantly less than his 2005 remuneration of €1.505 million.

ABN Amro bidder meets regulators

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has embarked on a charm offensive with banking regulators in an effort to persuade them of the feasibility of its plans to break up ABN Amro.

Sir Fred Goodwin, RBS chief executive, and executives from Santander and Fortis, the two other banks in the consortium, have been holding meetings with the Dutch central bank and the UK's financial services authority to explain their plans for an orderly break-up of the Dutch bank.

Under Dutch stock market rules, the consortium has two weeks in which to formalise its €71 billion bid for ABN Amro.

Sources familiar with the situation said that the group was making good progress with its preparations, but wanted to retain an option to walk away.

Thomson unit to be sold for $7.75bn

Thomson yesterday agreed to sell its education publishing division for $7.75 billion (€5.7 billion) in cash, boosting the ability of the Canadian electronic publishing group to finance a bid for British rival Reuters.

As part of the offer made for Reuters on May 7th, Thomson would need about $8.75 billion in cash, and the higher than expected selling price of its education division would help fund that, analysts and executives said.

Apax Partners, the British private-equity group and the Ontario Municipal Employees' Retirement System were the winning bidders for Thomson's educational publishing division, which it put on the block last October after deciding it wanted to focus on electronic news and information.

Finnish mill group lists on AIM

Finnish paper mill operator Powerflute Oyj, which is chaired by Michael Smurfit's brother Dermot, successfully floated on London's Alternative Investment Market (AIM) yesterday.

It placed 44 million shares, representing 50 per cent of its issued share capital. Its implied market capitalisation is £96.8 million (€141.9 million).