DaimlerChrysler, Deutsche Bank, Siemens May Move: German Equity Preview

(Bloomberg) -- The following stocks may rise or fall
in German markets today. Stock symbols are in parentheses after
the company names and prices are from the Xetra close on May 18
unless otherwise stated.

DAX Futures expiring in June rose 8, or 0.1 percent, to
7637.50 at 8:21 a.m. in Frankfurt. The DAX Index added 108.04, or
1.4 percent, to 7607.54.


Read more at Bloomberg Stocks News

Credit-Default Swaps Spur Fastest Derivatives Market Growth in Nine Years

(Bloomberg) -- The global derivatives market grew at
the fastest pace in at least nine years during 2006 as the amount
of contracts based on bonds more than doubled to $29 trillion,
the Bank for International Settlements said today.

Derivatives covering bonds and loans rose by $15 trillion
last year, the Basel, Switzerland-based bank said on its Web
site. The total amount of over-the-counter contracts whose value
is derived from price changes of bonds, currencies, commodities
and stocks, or events like interest rates or the weather rose
39.5 percent to $415 trillion, the biggest jump since the BIS
began compiling the data.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

UPDATE 1-NEC profit falls from audits, promises growth

(Reuters) - NEC, mired in an auditing mess, has suffered from shrinking
demand for its microprocessors, but it is aiming to cut costs and
develop new revenues from network system sales and consulting.




For the year to March 2007, the chips-to-computers company
earned an operating profit of 69.98 billion yen ,
compared with 72.53 billion yen a year earlier, as it delayed
posting sales of high-margin network systems.


Read more at Reuters.com Market News

Nikko to name three Citigroup execs to board: report

(Reuters) - The Nikkei said in its evening edition that Nikko had decided to make the appointments, which include Citibank Japan Chief Executive Douglas Peterson, in a bid to regain market trust after an accounting scandal.




Citigroup launched its buyout bid after the accounting scandal which hurt business at core retail unit Nikko Cordial Securities and Nikko Citigroup Ltd., the companies' eight-year-old investment banking joint venture.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

Pfizer says CFO resigns; R&D president to retire

(Reuters) - Pfizer, which ousted Chief Executive Hank McKinnell last July after a disappointing pipeline of new medicines sent its share price to multi-year lows, said Levin had resigned to pursue career opportunities outside of Pfizer.




John LaMattina, president of global research and development, will also leave his post and retire by the end of this year after 30 years with the company.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

Tokyo Electric to Sell 50 Billion Yen of 12-Year Bonds After Yields Fell

(Bloomberg) -- Tokyo Electric Power Co., Asia's
largest power producer, plans to market 50 billion yen ($412
million) of bonds starting tomorrow, after raising 100 billion
yen last week, a finance department manager said.

The company, known as Tepco, plans to sell bonds maturing in
12 years this week, the manager said, asking not to be identified
because the information isn't public. The last time Tepco sold
bonds of that maturity was in August 2000.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

Newcastle Coal Price Rises as Supplies Tightens on Export Cut From China

(Bloomberg) -- Export prices for power-station coal
at Newcastle, Australia, the world's largest coal export terminal
rose to their highest level in 13 weeks as reduced exports from
China tightened supplies.

The price of thermal coal for immediate delivery from the
port in New South Wales state increased $1.37 to $54.66 a metric
ton in the week ended May 18 from a week earlier, according to
the globalCOAL NEWC Index. China coal exports fell for a fourth
month in April as the world's second-largest energy user kept
more fuel to meet demand at home.


Read more at Bloomberg Energy News

APN says wants Perpetual to clarify merger stance

(Reuters) - Perpetual owns 14.8 percent of APN, the newspaper said.




Shares in APN fell 4 percent to traded at A$5.74 at 0005 GMT.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

China to take $3 billion stake in Blackstone

(Reuters) - The agreement gives China's government a stake in the private equity boom sweeping the globe and hands a key alliance to Blackstone at a time foreign investors struggle to gain support from the Chinese government for takeovers of domestic assets.




The announcement comes just days before this week's planned visit to the United States by Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi to discuss sticking points in trade. The talks are hosted by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

IRPC Sets Target Yield on the First Bond Sale by a Thai Company This Year

(Bloomberg) -- IRPC Pcl, Thailand's biggest
petrochemicals company by sales, set the target yield on a
planned sale of $250 million of bonds, the first overseas debt
offering by a Thai company this year.

IRPC, based in Bangkok, is seeking to price 10-year bonds to
yield 1.15 to 1.2 percentage points more than the mid-swap rate,
according to an e-mail sent to investors by one of the sale's
arrangers. The 10-year mid-swap rate was at 5.352 percent at 9:40
a.m. Singapore time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

Taiwan's CPC Corp. Buys 40,000 Tons of LPG at Premium for Delivery in June

(Bloomberg) -- CPC Corp., Taiwan's state oil refiner,
bought 40,000 metric tons of liquefied petroleum gas at an
average premium of about $40 a ton to Saudi Aramco's June
contract price for delivery to two ports in June, a company
official said.

A 20,000-ton cargo for delivery to Shen-Ao in northern
Taiwan is priced higher than a second cargo of the same size for
shipment to Kaohsiung because of port restrictions, said the
official who didn't want to be identified.


Read more at Bloomberg Energy News

U.S. 10-Year Treasury Yields Hold at Three-Month High as Equities Advance

(Bloomberg) -- Ten-year Treasury yields held at the
highest in more than three months after gains in U.S. stocks
added to speculation that economic growth is fast enough to keep
the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates.

An index of Treasuries has incurred a 0.6 percent loss to
investors so far in May, heading for its biggest monthly drop
since March 2006, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. data. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average rose to a record, while durable goods
orders probably climbed for a third month, according to a
Bloomberg News survey before the government reports the figure
May 24.


Read more at Bloomberg Bonds News

Perpetual says plans to vote against APN takeover

(Reuters) - INM, led by tycoon Tony O'Reilly, nudged up its takeover offer for APN to value the firm at A$3 billion last month after key shareholders, including Perpetual, criticized an earlier offer.




Read more at Reuters.com Business News

Kuwait Ends Currency Peg to U.S. Dollar, Moves to Basket of Currencies

(Bloomberg) -- The Central Bank of Kuwait abandoned
the dinar's peg to the dollar after the slumping U.S. currency
pushed up the cost of imports and added to inflation in OPEC's
fourth-largest oil producer.

The country will instead link its exchange rate to a basket
of ``major world currencies,'' Kuwait's state-owned news service
said today, citing the central bank. The dinar appreciated by 0.4
percent against the dollar after the measure.


Read more at Bloomberg Currencies News

U.S. seeks to freeze assets of former Qwest CEO

(Reuters) - In a motion filed on Friday in Denver federal court,
prosecutors said Nacchio and his wife, Anne Esker, have assets
derived from the sales of Qwest stock worth "well more than $100
million," which is subject to forfeiture under federal law.




In the alternative, prosecutors said, Nacchio should deposit
the more than $52 million gross that a jury found he made on the
illegal trades.


Read more at Reuters.com Bonds News

Atlas America to Acquire DTE Energy's Gas & Oil Unit for $1.23 Billion

(Bloomberg) -- Atlas America Inc.'s Atlas Energy
Resources unit will buy a subsidiary of DTE Energy Co., owner of
Michigan's largest utility, for $1.23 billion.

The unit, DTE Gas & Oil Co., owns interests in about 2,150
natural gas wells drawing from Northern Michigan's Antrim Shale
formations, Atlas America said in a statement distributed by
Market Wire.


Read more at Bloomberg Energy News

CORRECTED: Hologic offers to buy Cytyc for $6.2 billion

(Reuters) - Hologic and Cytyc, which both make diagnostic and other medical products for women, said the deal is expected to close in the third quarter and will boost Hologic's earnings in the first year afterward and more so in following years.




The combined entity would operate in more than 20 countries and have more than 3,300 employees, the companies said in a joint release.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News

RPT-IPO VIEW-RSC Holdings IPO continues private equity trend

(Reuters) - NEW YORK, May 20 - This week's IPO of equipment
leasing company RSC Holdings is the latest to shine a spotlight
on the narrowing window between private equity firms' takeovers
of public companies and their moves later to refloat the
shares.




Almost one-third of initial public offerings so far this
year have been sponsored by private equity firms, according to
data tracking firm Dealogic.


Read more at Reuters.com Mergers News

China Growth, Not Paulson, May Force Government to Accept Yuan Revaluation

(Bloomberg) -- China faces growing pressure to
increase the value of the yuan, and Henry Paulson has nothing to
do with it.

The world's fastest-growing economy is so hot that the
government is considering a currency revaluation prompted by
uncontrollable money supply growth, inflation, a runaway stock
market and ballooning foreign exchange reserves.


Read more at Bloomberg Currencies News

Kuwait Ends Currency Peg to Dollar, Moves to Basket of Currencies

(Bloomberg) -- The Central Bank of Kuwait ended its
currency peg to the dollar, moving to a basket of currencies, the
Kuwaiti state-owned news agency said, citing the central bank. The
dinar appreciated by 0.37 percent against the dollar.

The central bank will adopt an exchange rate ``based on a
basket of major world currencies,'' the KUNA news agency said.


Read more at Bloomberg Currencies News

UPDATE 1-Kuwait drops dollar peg, adopts currency basket

(Reuters) - KUWAIT, May 20 - Kuwait switched the dinar's
exchange rate mechanism to a basket of currencies on Sunday,
dropping a peg to the tumbling U.S. dollar that was adopted in
2003 and throwing into disarray plans for a single currency in
the Gulf Arab region.




Kuwait was still committed to the monetary union, the
central bank governor said in a statement, but the dollar's
slide over the past two years had forced it to break ranks with
fellow Gulf oil producers to contain inflation.


Read more at Reuters.com Economic News

Asia the top investment choice for expats: survey

(Reuters) - Thirty-seven percent of investors have exposure to continental Europe, while 29 percent are exposed to the United States and 26 percent have investments in Britain.




A year ago, continental Europe was the most popular region, followed by the United States, Asia and the UK in the survey by Internaxx, a joint venture between Fortis Banque Luxembourg and brokerage company TD Waterhouse.


Read more at Reuters.com Business News