Business and City in Brief

Tyne Tees axe falls on 188 more jobs

Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television, the Channel 3 broadcaster, has cut another 188 jobs to bring to 380 the number of staff made redundant since the merger of the two companies a year ago.

The axe is falling on 91 airtime sales staff who had expected to lose their jobs when the sales contract was given to LWT recently, as well as 51 employees at Leeds and 46 in Newcastle. The staff of Tyne Tees will have dwindled from 375 to fewer than 220 since the merger.

German orders up

Western German industrial orders rose a provisional 4 per cent in May from April but were down 8.1 per cent on a year ago. In April industrial orders were 1 per cent higher than March but down 11.7 per cent from a year earlier.

Heron go-ahead

Heron has won the final go-ahead from creditors at a meeting in the Netherlands Antilles for its pounds 1.4bn restructuring plan.

Jaguar production soars

Jaguar, the luxury car maker, said production rose 46 per cent in the first half compared with the same period last year. Half-year output at Coventry improved from 10,227 to 14,951 units, with sales in Germany and the US up a fifth.

China's deficit doubles

Soaring imports pushed China's trade deficit for the first half of 1993 to dollars 3.54bn, more than doubling the trade gap in two months. Imports surged to dollars 40.69bn, up 23.4 per cent compared with the same period in 1992, while exports grew 4.4 per cent to dollars 37.15bn.

Bull to shed 6,500

Groupe Bull, the state-controlled French computer maker, will shed 6,500 jobs worldwide by the end of next year in the wake of an dollars 874m loss in 1992. The group has lost nearly dollars 3bn in three years.

Russell expected at 3i

Sir George Russell, chairman of the Independent Television Commission, is expected to be confirmed soon as the next chairman of 3i, the venture capital group.

Kerry heads for LSE

Kerry Group, the Irish food firm, has applied for a listing on the London Stock Exchange and expects dealing in its 'A' ordinary shares to start on Thursday.

Italy cuts rates

The Bank of Italy cuts its discount rate from 10 to 9 per cent today, the lowest since February 1976.

E&Y audit passed

Ernst & Young will not face regulatory action over its audit of Edencorp Leisure and its predecessor firms' audits of Sound Diffusion, Milbury and Rotaprint, the Institute of Chartered Accountants' audit registration committee said.

Unipart value leaps

Unipart, the car parts group sold to its management and employees six years ago, said its share value had increased more than 50 per cent to pounds 9.80 compared with pounds 6.50 when last valued in May 1992. The shares were priced at 5p in 1987.

World Markets

New York: Closed (holiday).

Tokyo: The thinnest trading for four months saw the Nikkei average edge up 1.6 points to 19,623.06.

Hong Kong: Concern over China's growing economic problems wiped out early gains and sent the Hang Seng index down 12.52 to 7,205.41.

Sydney: Gold issues were one of the few areas of strength as the All Ordinaries index, depressed by Wall Street's poor performance, gave up three points to 1,756.9.

Johannesburg: Shares ended higher on the back of a steady gold price. The overall index added 26 points to close at 4,701.

Paris: Pessimism over interest rate prospects pulled the market down, and the CAC-40 index retreated 15.71 points to 1,925.44.

Frankfurt: Lack of buying interest after last week's interest rate cuts lowered the DAX 5.64 to 1,692.17.

Zurich: Consolidating recent gains, the Swiss Performance Index eased 1.96 points to 1,489.39.

Milan: Blue chips gained after the long-awaited national labour deal was clinched at the weekend. The MIB gained 0.42 per cent to 1,193.

London: Report, page 26.