InShort

A round-up of today's other news stories in brief

Cork turbine repair firm sold for $10m

SR Technics, the Swiss aircraft maintenance company, has agreed to buy the Cork-based turbine component repair business of Sifco Industries for $10 million (€8.2 million) to help expand its service offering to airlines.

Sifco's Irish operation, set up in 1983, provides turbine engine hot section component repair services for blades and vanes in commercial airline engines made by Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, CFMI and Snecma.

The acquisition of the business, in the Mahon area of Cork, is expected to close on April 20th.

IMI names chief operations officer

The Irish Management Institute (IMI) has named Geraldine Kelly as chief operations officer.

Ms Kelly, a former vice president of global product development for Thompson Net, has worked with the IMI previously in a consultative role and over the past year as head of the sales and marketing team. In her new position she will take direct responsibility for sales and marketing, human resources, finance and operations, and the IMI knowledge centre.

Vodafone Japan in £9bn bidding war

Vodafone's planned sale of its Japanese business turned into a £9 billion (€13 billion) bidding war yesterday as two financial groups raced to challenge the mobile phone operator's negotiations with SoftBank and put together Japan's largest private equity buy out.

Cerberus, the US hedge fund, has joined forces with Providence Equity Partners to mount an all-cash bid for the whole of Vodafone Japan. It has lodged an expression of interest with Vodafone's board and is understood to have held talks with banks including JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley about financing the deal.

The interest from Cerberus came as Vodafone's negotiations with SoftBank, the Japanese internet services provider, accelerated. One person who is familiar with the talks said a deal could be announced "soon or very soon". - (Financial Times service)

France, Italy to join on energy

France and Italy are discussing increased co-operation in the energy sector, including in nuclear power. This comes as Italian utility Enel yesterday continued to weigh a possible hostile bid for Suez, the Franco-Belgian power and water company that is planning to merge with Gaz de France.

Paris officials insist these broader discussions are unrelated to the takeover saga and that no concessions will be made to Enel, which has accused the French government of intervening to scupper a planned bid for Suez.

But an accord could help ease growing political tensions between the two countries, sparked by the French government's decision to back a hastily announced merger between Suez and state-controlled GdF. - (Financial Times service)

Markets rebound in Gulf region

Gulf stock markets rebounded sooner than expected yesterday as investors moved in to snap up cheap stocks and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi billionaire, announced his Kingdom Holdings would inject up to 10 billion riyals to rescue the Saudi bourse.

The Saudi market, which accounts for almost half the market capitalisation of the Gulf region, rose almost 5 per cent, recouping losses made on Tuesday when markets across the region experienced their steepest decline in years.

Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar all followed suit, with only Bahrain and Oman closing down. Some analysts predicted earlier that it could take weeks for Gulf markets to start recovering . - (Financial Times service)