A round-up of today's other business stories in brief.
CDE in joint venture with Indian firm
CDE, the Northern Irish designer and manufacturer of washing and screening machinery, has formed a joint venture, CDE Asia, with Torsa Machines based in Calcutta, India.
It has also signed a contract in the Middle East to manufacture sand-washing systems in a deal worth £6 million in export sales.
Set up in 1991, CDE employs 70 people and sells more than 80 per cent of its machinery to customers in India, the Arabian Gulf and Pakistan as well as Britain and the Republic.
Cider group calls for fair budget
The Cider Industry Council has called for fair tax treatment in the Budget. It wants the Minister for Finance to maintain current levels of cider duty.
Previous budget increases had hampered the growth of the cider industry, it said. The council has said that the numbers employed in the industry could rise from 500 to 750 if current market and economic conditions are maintained.
Nasdaq's $5.1bn finance plan
Nasdaq has unveiled terms of up to $5.1 billion (€4 billion) in new finance it will use to pay for its acquisition of the London Stock Exchange, conceding that the cost and size of debt is so high that it has little scope to raise its offer price above £12.43 a share.
When Nasdaq announced its bid for the LSE last week, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's placed the company's debt on its Creditwatch list, suggesting that it could be in for a downgrade. - (Financial Times service)
Mizuho plans to raise €2.65bn
Mizuho Financial Group, Japan's second largest bank by assets, plans to raise as much as Y400 billion (€2.65 billion), in a move aimed at supporting its global ambitions and bolstering its core capital.
Mizuho said it would issue yen-denominated preferred securities to raise its tier-one capital, but would not say how much it planned to raise, or what the dividend rate would be.
It would be Japan's largest capital-raising issue this fiscal year. The capital raising will also help the banking group to refinance similar securities issued by the banks that merged to create Mizuho. - (Financial Times service)
Bayer profits from Schering purchase
Bayer, the German industrial conglomerate, says its acquisition of Schering had made healthcare its most profitable division and would help to raise full-year operating earnings.
The first combined quarterly earnings since the close of the transaction provided a signal that Bayer's €17 billion takeover, launched in the spring, could pay off as it tried to catch up with the world's larger, pure pharmaceuticals businesses. - (Financial Times service)
Eurotunnel avoids debt cash crisis
Eurotunnel has taken a significant step towards avoiding a looming cash crunch by narrowly winning a vote among the most senior holders of its £6.18 billion (€9.12 billion) debt for the latest restructuring plan.
The vote yesterday was the most important hurdle in the way of the proposed restructuring, which the Channel Tunnel operator presented to shareholders at the end of last month.
However, the company must still win approval from holders of the lowest-ranked £1.9 billion (€2.8 billion) of debt, in a vote to be held next week. Some 60 per cent of shareholders will also need to tender their shares before the offer can take effect. - (Financial Times service)
