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Reuters Business Summary

Reuters - Saturday, July 5

BCE buyers finalize funding

TORONTO - Announcing what it said were "essential milestones" allowing the world's largest leveraged buyout to go ahead, BCE Inc <BCE.TO><BCE.N> said on Friday that its buyers had finalized funding and were sticking to their C$34.8-billion purchase price. In an announcement that was in stark contract to news of buyouts that have crumbled in the United States, the Canadian telecom giant said it expected its going-private deal to close by December 11.

Hyundai union calls for work stoppage next week

SEOUL - Unionized employees of Hyundai Motor Co <005380.KS> will walk off the job for four hours next week to push for a pay increase, the auto maker's union said on Saturday. The latest labor action follows a two-hour walk off on Wednesday by unionized employees at Hyundai Motor and other South Korean car makers, in a move aimed at having the government scrap a U.S. beef import deal.

Merrill nears deal to sell Bloomberg stake: report

NEW YORK - Merrill Lynch & Co <MER.N> may sell its 20 percent stake in financial news and data provider Bloomberg LP to a blind trust controlled by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, The New York Post reported on Friday. Details about the terms of a sale remain sketchy, the Post said, and sources warned that a deal could still fall apart.

French bank body fines SocGen $6 million over Kerviel

PARIS - France's Banking Commission on Friday fined Societe Generale 4 million euros for serious breaches in internal controls revealed by the French bank's 4.9 billion euro rogue trading loss. In a decision e-mailed to Reuters, the Banking Commission also reprimanded France's second-biggest listed bank for poor supervision that led to the unauthorized trades by Jerome Kerviel, the former SocGen trader blamed for the losses earlier this year.

World stocks fall on financial shares, oil drops

SAO PAULO - World stocks edged lower on Friday, getting no relief from a decline in crude prices as concerns of further banking write-downs weighed on financial shares. Oil prices fell more than a dollar a barrel after Iran responded to an incentives package offered by six world powers in a bid to resolve a dispute over its nuclear development program.

Tax credit to save UBS from hefty loss

ZURICH - Battered Swiss bank UBS said on Friday it should be saved from another hefty loss in the second quarter by a large tax credit, giving a much-needed though short-lived boost to its share price. UBS, which has written $37 billion off its assets as a result of the credit crisis, said it expected to break even or make a small loss in the second quarter, helped by the 3 billion Swiss franc ($2.96 billion) tax credit.

EU opens in-depth investigation of Rio-BHP deal

BRUSSELS - The European Commission opened an in-depth investigation on Friday into BHP Billiton's <BHP.AX><BLT.L> $170 billion unsolicited bid for rival miner Rio Tinto <RIO.L>, with prices of iron ore already soaring. The European Union's executive arm issued a tough statement with a list of sweeping concerns but said Australian BHP would be able to respond. The probe has a deadline of November 11.

European banks need to raise up to $141 billion: Goldman

- Goldman Sachs said the European banks sector needs to raise about 60 billion to 90 billion euros ($94 to $141 billion), or withhold one year of dividends, to reach an aggregate Tier I ratio of 9 percent -- a level achieved by European banks that have recapitalized recently. The bearish comment by the Goldman analysts weighed on European stocks, with the benchmark FTSEurofirst 300 index down 0.43 percent at 1,172.99 points by 5:40 a.m. EDT.

Kimmitt confident in economic fundamentals

BERLIN - Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said on Friday he was confident about the United States' economic fundamentals in the long term despite a current rough patch and was quite optimistic about the future. "Our view is that we continue to have confidence in the long-term fundamentals but we're going through a very rough period," Kimmitt said at a conference on transatlantic relations in Berlin.

Weak dollar is global concern: EU's Barroso

BRUSSELS - The dollar's fall is a source of global concern and the European Union wants a better balance between the U.S. unit and other major currencies, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Friday. Speaking to a group of journalists before departing for the annual Group of Eight industrial nations' summit in Japan next week, Barroso endorsed the European Central Bank's decision to raise its key interest rate despite warnings from some EU governments, notably France.

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