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CA-BUSINESS Summary

24/11/09

Porsche aims to end Magna's Boxster contract: source

STUTTGART (Reuters) - Germany's Porsche aims to cancel a deal that would have Canada's Magna build the Porsche Boxster model series under contract, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters. The move follows Volkswagen's planned takeover of parts of insolvent contract carmaker Karmann. Volkswagen and Porsche are in the process of merging by 2011.

Stock futures signal losses; HP eyed

(Reuters) - U.S. stock index futures pointed to a lower opening on Wall Street on Tuesday, following the previous session's sharp gains, with futures for the S&P 500 down 0.18 percent, Dow Jones futures down 0.26 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures down 0.38 percent at 0925 GMT (4:25 a.m. EST). Hewlett-Packard Co said it has tripled the size of its share repurchase program to $12 billion as China sales and better profit margins on its services boosted quarterly earnings.

Opel labor to see revamp plan on Wednesday

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - General Motors will present labor leaders at European arm Opel a reorganization plan on Wednesday that envisions cutting nearly a fifth of the workforce, GM's acting European head said. The plan calls for eliminating between 9,000 and 9,500 jobs, GM's Nick Reilly told reporters on Tuesday. GM has said in the past around 10,000 jobs would go at Opel and its British sister brand Vauxhall.

Western Coal says aware of potential lawsuit in Ontario

LONDON (Reuters) - Western Coal Corp said it was aware of a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges inaccurate disclosure in the group's second-quarter 2007 financial report. "The company believes these allegations are without merit and intends to vigorously defend them as well as the plaintiff's attempt to obtain court approval to proceed with the action," Western Coal said.

Manulife to buy China fund manager stake

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's top life insurer Manulife Financial Corp said late on Wednesday it agreed to buy a 49 percent stake in ABN AMRO TEDA Fund Management Co in China for $156 million in cash, following up on pledges to hit the acquisition trail. Manulife said it bought the stake from Fortis Bank SA, which is in turn controlled by BNP Paribas , France's largest bank.

Ciena beats NSN to buy Nortel's businesses for $769 mln

HELSINKI/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ciena Corp agreed to buy the optical networking and ethernet equipment businesses of bankrupt Nortel Networks for $769 million after trumping a bid from Nokia Siemens Networks. The deal, which ends a three-day auction, will vault Ciena to third place in the optical network equipment market, boosting it against bigger rival Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei Technologies Co .

N.Y. sentencing of Canadian insider trader delayed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Canadian attorney behind what U.S. prosecutors describe as the largest insider trading scheme in Canadian history was denied entry to the United States and could not be sentenced on Monday. Canadian Stanko Grmovsek admitted in a Toronto court earlier this year to making $9 million with a law school friend in a 14-year illegal scheme, including laundering money by gambling wads of cash on games such as blackjack in Las Vegas's world-famous casino strip.

Gold eases, investors take profits after record

TOKYO (Reuters) - Gold eased on Tuesday as investors took profits from the previous day's record high, but sentiment was underpinned by a weak dollar. Traders said gold may slide as low as $1,145-$1,150 in a near-term correction, but the market was bound to recover given supportive factors such as the weak dollar, expectations for low U.S. interest rates and bullish sentiment after gold purchases by some central banks.

TSX end higher on resource issues, banks

TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto's main stock index pared early gains but ended higher on Monday, touching its highest level in nearly 14 months as an early rally in oil prices powered energy stocks, while financials gained ground ahead of a flood of bank earnings reports. Despite a late retreat by oil prices -- which ended marginally higher after being up as much as $2 a barrel -- the energy sector closed up 0.71 percent.

Bank worries, profit-taking hits stocks

LONDON (Reuters) - Financial markets did a quick about-face from the previous session's patterns on Tuesday with stocks falling, the dollar recovering some losses and gold dropping back a bit from record highs. Investors were generally taking profits from Monday's stock rally, which saw U.S. blue chips gain 1.3 percent and European shares 2 percent.

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