A round-up of today's other stories in brief.
€1.8bn sale of Airtricity goes ahead
The €1.8 billion sale of Irish wind energy group, Airtricity to Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) went through yesterday.
The Airtricity board and its biggest shareholder, NTR, announced that the deal, agreed last month, has been completed.
The equity value of the sale to SSE is €1.1 billion. The deal includes payment for the €800 million proceeds of the sale of Airtricity's American business to German giant Eon. "The combined sale proceeds, including the North American transaction, net of transaction costs and other adjustments, is approximately €1.8 billion," NTR said yesterday.
Airlines to pay passengers
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have agreed to pay passengers about $204 million settling US claims that the carriers conspired to fix fuel surcharges on key transatlantic routes.
The payments mark the latest twist in a global web of price-fixing conspiracies in the aviation industry.
"We think it's a huge victory," said Charles Tompkins, a partner with Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, a US law firm that brought the suit against the airlines in 2006. Passengers who bought tickets in the US will split $59 million; those in the UK will share in £73.5 million. BA still faces suits and fines in Europe over alleged cargo price-fixing. - (Financial Times service)
Shareholders call for MinMet egm
Shareholders have called on mining group MinMet to convene an extraordinary general meeting.
The shareholders who, between them, own more than 10 per cent of the company are looking to block its plans for a reverse takeover of Tucamcari announced last month. MinMet shares have been suspended since December. The company said it intended to respond "in due course".
Stock exchange will delist REO
The Irish Stock Exchange will suspend Real Estate Opportunities (REO) Ltd zero dividend preference shares on Monday and delist it the following day.
The move stems from the Treasury Holdings backed REO's restructuring, which involves cancelling its zero dividend preference shares, which are listed separately from its ordinary stock on the Dublin market, and issuing new zero dividend preference shares in a new entity, REO Securities Ltd.
Shareholders last month voted in favour of the restructuring, which eliminates the need to wind up the company in 2011 as originally proposed. The High Court in Jersey, where the company is registered, subsequently approved the scheme.
Lundin Mining shares tumble
Shares of Lundin Mining, the owner of Galmoy, have tumbled after the company provided surprise revenue and production forecasts that it said were lower than analysts were expecting.
Lundin said it expects fourth-quarter sales in the range of $240 million to $255 million, and earnings before tax of $70 million to $90 million. Analysts expected fourth-quarter revenues of $310.59 million from Lundin. - (Reuters)
Investor sues Intel for antitrust claim
Intel wasted millions of dollars fighting antitrust claims triggered by its monopolistic tactics, an investor said in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in Wilmington, Delaware, federal court, that names chairman Craig Barrett and chief executive officer Paul Otellini as defendants.
Martin Smilow faulted the world's biggest chipmaker, as well as a dozen Intel officers and board members, for money spent defending scores of civil suits and government antitrust actions in the US, Europe and Asia. - (Bloomberg)
