European Business News 96-10-01

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

Page last updated 1400 October 1 CET

CONTENTS

[01] Arafat and Netanyahu to meet

[02] Aker and RGI agree to merge

[03] Degussa plans major structure reorganisation

[04] Olivetti's debt swelled in july

[05] Eurotunnel continues talks

[01] Arafat and Netanyahu to meet

Summing up the situation on the eve of what for President Clinton was a politically risky summit, US Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Monday, 'It's clear to me that the Middle East peace process is in a state of crisis.'

Netanyahu, speaking with reporters on his plane en route to Washington, offered to hold continuous negotiations with the Palestinians after the Washington summit and 'until agreement is reached.'

But a senior US official described Arafat and Netanyahu as so distrustful of each other that simply getting them to 're-engage' is the first order of business at the Washington summit.

'They are not talking to each other in a way that anything could be resolved,' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He said the summit agenda must include Hebron, the West Bank town where Israel has not fulfilled a pledge to pull its troops away from Arab residents, and safe passage for Palestinian workers entering and leaving Israel.

Clinton planned to meet separately Tuesday with Netanyahu and then Arafat before all parties sat down together. A Wednesday meeting also was planned.

In a setback for the White House, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rejected Clinton's telephone invitation to join Jordan's King Hussein as a summit participant. Hussein arrived in Washington on Monday night.

Mubarak's absence was unlikely to seriously affect chances of defusing tensions on the West Bank and in Gaza or US efforts to launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on a permanent peace agreement. But the administration had looked on him as a steadying influence - Egypt was the first Arab country to agree to peace with Israel - and as a potential supporter of whatever agreements might emerge from the talks.

The talks are designed to defuse tensions and revive faltering peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian aspirations for a state with its capital in Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem, Palestinian Cabinet minister Hanan Ashrawi told ABC the Palestinians 'don't want to run the risk of a summit that will end in failure.'

Clinton sounded a hopeful note in announcing Sunday that Netanyahu and Arafat had accepted his invitation to come to Washington.

[02] Aker and RGI agree to merge

The proposed exchange ratio is 2.15 RGI shares for 1 Aker share. On Monday RGI's shares were quoted at 66.50 kroner a share while Aker's stock was at 132.50 kroner.

The new company, to be called Aker RGI ASA, will have an annual turnover of 19bn kroner and nearly 17,000 employees, the statement said.

Subject to approval by shareholders of the two groups in November, the merger will become effective in early 1997, Aker said.

The core businesses of the merged group will initially include oil and gas technology through an 80% stake in Aker Maritime, cement and building materials through a one-third holding in Swedish based Scancem, and fish through a 61% interest in Norway Seafoods.

The merger between Aker and RGI was approved unanimously by the boards of the two companies. Bjoern Rune Gjelsten, Aker's chairman, will be nominated as chairman of the board of the merged group.

Aker's and RGI's shares were placed on the stock exchange's observation list early Tuesday, an action which is normal procedure in merger cases, said Tore Fjell, director at the Oslo Stock Exchange.

[03] Degussa plans major structure reorganisation

The Frankfurt-based company said it plans to bundle all its diverse activities into three main operating arms. These will consist of chemicals products, health and nutrition, and precious metals and banking.

Degussa chairman Uwe-Ernst Bufe told reporters that the company plans 11 formal business units that will be allocated among the three main divisions.

At present, Degussa has a more fragmented corporate structure that the company said isn't performing as well as it should.

[04] Olivetti's debt swelled in july

Only four weeks ago, Olivetti released preliminary first-half results showing a pretax loss of 440.2bn lire (200bn lire of which was attributed to extraordinary restructuring charges) and debt of 1.26 trillion lire, causing an investor outcry since the company had repeatedly promised to break even this year.

At the time, Carlo De Benedetti, chairman of the information and technology company for eight years, resigned, triggering a series of management shuffles.

Subsequently, Olivetti's former general manager and financial director, Renzo Francesconi, suggested that the preliminary first-half figures understated losses and debt.

In its announcement Monday, Olivetti confirmed the preliminary first-half figures, but said its debt snowballed to 2.394 trillion lire as of August 31, mostly due to seasonal factors and extraordinary expenses. The company didn't provide an estimate of its loss through August.

The seasonal factors indicated in the document released by Olivetti Monday were payments to suppliers totaling 450bn lire 'related to a peak in sales in the last months of the year.' Also weighing on Olivetti's debt were securitization and factoring costs totaling 665bn lire related to the company's commercial credits.

Responding to increasing pressure from financial markets and upset investors, Italy's stock exchange watchdog, Consob, pushed Olivetti in September to issue more-detailed results for the first half and to include July and August figures as well.

Consob also asked Olivetti's internal auditors to certify the financial statement, a procedure usually required only for full-year results.

Meanwhile, public prosecutors in Ivrea, the northwestern Italian town where Olivetti is based, opened a probe into the company's first-half results and into the company's top managers for alleged false corporate reporting.

Investors, who bought up to 70% of the company's capital during Olivetti's 2.25-trillion-lira capital increase in December, blamed Olivetti and its management for lack of disclosure and poor investor relations in the wake of the first-half results.

Furthermore, a group of UK fund managers representing about a quarter of the capital started to raise their voices and are now asking for a seat on the company's board of directors.

Critics as well as many shareholders complain that Olivetti is still tightly linked to De Benedetti, saying all of Olivetti's top executive positions are occupied by people close to him.

[05] Eurotunnel continues talks

The French commercial-court appointed negotiators' mandate expired at midnight without having constructed a restructuring plan for its more than 8 billion British pounds in junior debt, she said. 'We have not reached an agreement,' she said. 'But negotiations are continuing.'

Eurotunnel has been negotiating to restructure the debt with its creditor banks after having suspended payment September 14. The agreement is expected to include a debt-for-equity swap that would give the 225 creditor banks a 49% stake in the company. The company suspended payment on its debt on September 14, 1995. The spokeswoman said she couldn't confirm whether or not the official negotiators had already handed in their report on the talks to the commercial court, as reported in today's Financial Times.

Sources close to the negotiations said the court-appointed mediators did turn in their report to the French commercial court yesterday. But it remains unclear when the president of the Tribunale de Paris will respond to the report. The spokeswoman also said she was unaware of how the commercial court would proceed with the mediators, whose mandate was not renewed. Possible routes include allowing negotiations to continue or beginning bankruptcy proceedings, observers have said.

In the meantime, negotiations between Eurotunnel and its creditors will continue. The company isn't expected to make a statement until it learns the court's reaction.

Eurotunnel shares remained suspended today in London, Paris and Brussels.

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

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