European Business News (96-07-09)

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From: The European Business News Server at <http://www.ebn.co.uk/>

Page last updated July 9 8:25 CET

CONTENTS

[01] Deutsche Bank set for sweeping reorganisation

[02] BSkyB television forms an alliance with Kirch Group for German pay TV

[03] Tension over 'Stability pact' at EU finance ministers meeting

[04] Bertelsmann and CLT set to merge

[05] France Telecom announces cheaper phone rates

[06] UK producer output falls 0.2% in June

[07] Guinness denies it's planning a bid for UK's Grand Metropolitan

[08] Swiss unemployment falls to 4.4%

[01] Deutsche Bank set for sweeping reorganisation

The move, to be approved at a meeting of the bank's supervisory board, will confirm the board status and fundamental equality of all 12 members of the current management board.

But management-board members' responsibilities will be more clearly split along strategic and operational lines following a restructuring of the bank's divisions according to core businesses such as investment, retail and corporate banking.

[02] BSkyB television forms an alliance with Kirch Group for German pay TV

BSkyB will take a 49% stake in DF1 GmbH and Co KG, Kirch's digital platform unit in Germany. BSkyB said it also expects to take at least a 25% stake in the sports channel Das Digitale Fernsehen (DSF).

[03] Tension over 'Stability pact' at EU finance ministers meeting

Jurgen Stark, Germany state secretary for finance, issued a challenge to the 14 other E.U. member states to come up with a budget 'stability pact' for single currency countries that would be credible in the eyes of the financial markets.

While the pact isn't on Monday's agenda, Stark seemed to take the opportunity to comment on a growing consensus within the E.U. that a strong- arm approach to fiscal rigor won't be politically or legally feasible.

Other E.U. countries are cool to German ideas for strict deficit guidelines or sanctions against those who surpass them.

Meanwhile, the ministers expressed diverging opinions about whether the E.U. as whole can do much for the bloc's 18 million jobless.

While some ministers are seeking to insert new language in the Maastricht Treaty underlying member state's commitment to employment, others reject what they consider to be empty gestures and place the responsibility in the hands of national governemnts.

[04] Bertelsmann and CLT set to merge

The two media groups are expected to announce today that they finalized plans to combine their television and radio activities. The announcement comes only three days after political agreement was reached in Germany to change the country's media laws to allow such large conglomerates to control TV channels.

On Friday, the prime ministers of Germany's federal states, who regulates the media, decided to lift a long-standing law under which individual companies aren't allowed to own stakes of 50% or more in any TV channel. Under the new law, companies may own all of a channel, but their overall share of the German TV market can't exceed 30%.

[05] France Telecom announces cheaper phone rates

The cost for most calls within France will drop 12.6 percent from 1.98 francs (40 cents) per minute to 1.73 francs (35 cents) per minute under the new rates unveiled by France Telecom.

Beginning Friday, international calls also will cost less. Calls will run about 20 percent cheaper within Europe, about 9 percent cheaper to Japan and about 10 percent cheaper to the United States, down to 4.45 francs (90 cents) per minute from 4.94 francs (dlrs 1).

France Telecom said Monday it hopes the rate cuts will prompt people to make more and longer calls, boosting its profitability as it weans itself off years of government support.

'It amounts to a political decision,' it said in a statement. 'Our desire is to invest in telephone traffic. Customers have told us that they'd call more if it were cheaper.'

Conservative French Premier Alain Juppe has staked out a tough position for privatizing France Telecom despite fierce resistance from the Socialist opposition.

Parliament was split on a bill that would change France Telecom's legal status to that of a corporation beginning on Jan. 1, with full privatization to follow in 1998.

Juppe, however, pushed the bill through late last month by invoking a parliamentary procedure to bypass a vote in the National Assembly.

[06] UK producer output falls 0.2% in June

The output price fall was wider than economists' median forecast for a dip of 0.1%, and the largest monthly fall since December 1991, when prices also declined 0.2% on the month. The input price decline was wider than forecasts for a 0.5% slide.

The core output price index - which excludes food, beverages, tobacco and petroleum - rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% in June from May, in line with forecasts.

[07] Guinness denies it's planning a bid for UK's Grand Metropolitan

Earlier Sunday, several London-based newspapers reported that Guinness might be on the verge of making a 13.2 billion-pound offer for the food and drinks group.

'We have no intention of purchasing Grand Met,' said Guinness Public Affairs Director Christopher Davidson.

Newspaper reports were based on a leaked document which contained research by the company's merchant bank, Lazards.

[08] Swiss unemployment falls to 4.4%

Some 159,964 persons were registered unemployed in June 1996, and there were 6,388 open positions.

From the European Business News (EBN) Server at http://www.ebn.co.uk/

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