LONDON - General Electric Co., the worlds largest aircraft engine maker, agreed Monday to buy the aerospace business of Smiths Group PLC, Britains third-largest aerospace company, for $4.8 billion in cash. Smiths will return $2.1 billion to shareholders, the London-based company said in a statement. GE and Smiths also announced plans for a joint venture called Smiths GE Detection. The market reacted enthusiastically, pushing Smiths shares up more than 15 percent to 1,135 pence ($22.24) on the...
Toyota open to expanded Ford partnership
January 22, 2007 on 10:51 am | In Money |
TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. is open to a broader partnership with Ford Motor Co. if the struggling U.S. auto maker asks, the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday, citing an interview with its president.
Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe told the paper that if the two auto makers formed a tie-up, it would likely focus on an alliance in technological development, but he said no talks had taken place yet.
Toyota spokeswoman Shiori Hashimoto said Toyota executives always meet with heads of other auto makers when opportunities occur and consider tie-ups if they are proposed, although it did not necessarily mean they would form an alliance.
Shares in Toyota were down 0.8 percent at 7,860 yen as of 0144 GMT, in line with a decline in the benchmark Nikkei average.
The Japanese auto maker said in December the chairman of the company, Fujio Cho, met with Ford chief executive Alan Mulally but they did not discuss the possibility of forming any alliance.
The comment was made after the Nikkei paper reported the two heads met as the first step in potential partnership negotiations.
Ford currently licenses part of Toyotas market-leading hybrid engine technology for the gasoline-electric versions of its Escape and Mariner sport utility vehicles.
Analysts have said Ford, which has relied heavily on its line-up of trucks and SUVs, would stand to gain from a cooperative partnership with Toyota if it focused on fuel economy and other technology seen as environmentally friendly.
Toyota is poised to overtake General Motors Corp. as the worlds largest auto maker in terms of production in 2007, and many analysts expect it will also unseat Ford as No. 2 in the U.S. market as well.
Watanabe also told the paper Toyota plans to sell in Japan small, low-priced cars which it is designing for emerging markets, as demand for minivehicles is growing rapidly.Copyright 2007 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
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Weekend Reading »By now you’re probably tired of predictions for 2007, so I’ll spare you my thoughts on where the market is headed this year. However, in the course of conducting our research on exchange-traded funds, we’ve arrived at a few conclusions that are contrary to the prevailing wisdom. Value continues to outperform growth. Value stocks have outperformed growth stocks for six consecutive years, about as long as growth predominated in the late 1990s. As a result, many strategists are...