SINGAPORE: French retailer Casino has hired Deutsche Bank and RBS to advise it on a potential bid for Carrefour's Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand assets, two sources said.
Carrefour has put up its Southeast Asian assets for sale at a potential price of US$1 billion (RM3.19 billion), according to sources with knowledge of the deal. It wants to sell its units in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand and focus on core markets where it holds leading positions.
Casino "is serious about" bidding for the Carrefour business, said one of the sources with knowledge of the deal.
The sources asked not to be named because the deal is not public.
Casino Group, Deutsche and
ECM Libra Investment Research has cut Wah Seong Corp's (5142) target price by 15 per cent as it thinks the group's growth will take much longer without an acquisition.
Still, the group won a US$15 million (RM48.15 million) pipe coating deal recently, from ILVA S.p.A, an Italian company, for the PTT Offshore Gas Spur Lines Project off Thailand.
Work will be undertaken at Wasco's coating plant in Kuantan, Pahang, and is expected to commence in the third quarter of 2010.
"While the job is small, its still good news for the company as all oil and gas stocks are typically news (contract news specifically) flow driven. Wah Seong, it would seem, has been pretty dry of contract flow over the past quarter but in actual fact they have been getting small jobs not just
HONG KONG/LONDON: BP has tapped HSBC to sell its stake in the Nam Con Son gas project in Vietnam, as it scrambles to hive off US$30 billion (US$1 = RM3.20) of assets to pay for the clean-up of the worst oil spill in US history, three sources said.
The British oil giant, which is on a campaign to sell a host of assets from Pakistan to Egypt, said last week it is seeking a buyer for its stake in the Nam Con Son gas project offshore southern Ho Chi Minh City, worth US$966 million by one estimate.
India's state-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp and Petrovietnam - both partners with BP in the Nam Con Son project - are expected to
BANGKOK: General Motors Co (GM) believes vehicle sales in Thailand could rise to more than 700,000 units this year as the economy proves resilient to recent political unrest and grows along with the rest of Southeast Asia.
In 2009, Thai auto sales totalled 549,000 units, according to ToyotaThailand data. At the moment, GM has just 2.5 per cent of that market, way behind leader Toyota with 40 per cent.
At a news conference in Bangkok, Martin Apfel, GM's president for Southeast Asian operations, said GM aimed to "seek its fair share" of a regional market where aggressive expansion plans have been made and first-half sales by its Chevrolet rose 24 per cent.
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BANGKOK, July 29 /PRNewswire/ -- In its recent outlook on the Southeast Asia mobile markets, Frost & Sullivan noted that operators in Thailand are learning that data services growth is fast replacing declining voice revenues. This realization has spurred aggressive push from the operator side to
BANGKOK: Thai Union Frozen Products pcl, the owner of the "Chicken of the Sea" canned tuna brand, said yesterday it would buy MW Brands Holdings SAS for US$884 million (US$1 = RM3.19) to become the world's biggest seafood firm.
TUF is already the world's largest canned tuna maker, while France-based MW has brands such as canned fish producer John West and canned tuna producer Petit Navire.
"MWB's strong European footprint will provide us with further business opportunities in the future through a strong customer base, distribution and brand leadership," TUF president Thiraphong Chansiri said.
MW was formerly part of HJ Heinz Co and is being sold by Trilantic Capital Partners, the former private-equity arm of Lehman Brothers,.....
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