Business and City in Brief

Luton airport complains to EC

Luton airport lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission alleging that BAA is cross-subsidising prices at Stansted airport in breach of competition laws. The Civil Aviation Authority has already dismissed a similar charge.

Grundig protest

Workers at Grundig, the loss- making electronics group, protested as its supervisory board met to decide on 4,000 job cuts.

Abbey purchase

Abbey National is buying the UK residential mortgage operation of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which has 17,500 mortgage customers and assets of pounds 900m.

Alpha in demand

The public offer for Alpha Airports was 6.1 times subscribed. The institutional part of the offer is thought to have been five times subscribed.

Chiroscience sought

The public took up 81 per cent of the shares offered in Chiroscience, the biotechnology newcomer.

Bletchley offer

Bletchley Motor Group is raising pounds 5m via a placing and open offer of 1.5 million shares at 340p each.

TC Coombs help

The Investors Compensation Scheme may compensate private clients of stockbroking firm TC Coombs, now in liquidation. Clients who made losses should contact the ICS.

Heavitree up

Heavitree Brewery made pre-tax profits in the year to the end of October of pounds 1.32m against pounds 496,000 the previous year. The final dividend was 3p against 2.45p.

Cory joins bidding

Cory Coal has joined a consortium to bid for assets of British Coal following its privatisation.

Collieries close

British Coal confirmed plans to close three pits with the loss of 2,300 jobs. Ellington, Manton and Ollerton collieries will cease production if the closure proposals are accepted by the workers. A fourth pit at Annesley in Nottinghamshire is expected to face closure after a review meeting.

Aer Lingus raid

European Commission competition officials raided Aer Lingus headquarters in Dublin in the wake of allegations of fare dumping on the Dublin-London route made by its rival Irish carrier Ryanair.

Sega plans

Sega, the Japanese computer-games maker, plans to build a dollars 20m 'virtual reality' arcade at MCA's Universal Studios complex near Los Angeles.

World Markets

New York: With shares near record levels the higher interest rate move provoked a rush of profit-taking and by the close the Dow Jones Average was down 96.24 points at 3,871.42.

Tokyo: The Nikkei 225 index see-sawed 126.61 higher to 20,301.43.

Hong Kong: Optimism that China will approve funding for the new airport lifted the Hang Seng index 306.44 to 12,157.57.

Bombay: A backlog of unfilled orders halted institutional buying, trimming the index 83.48 to 3,917.48.

Sydney: Metal shares firmed despite a 7.8 decline in the All Ordinaries index to 2,332.8.

Johannesburg: Strong overseas buying of industrials boosted the overall index 100 to 5,822.

Frankfurt: Lower bond prices left the DAX index 13.47 adrift at 2,138.25.

Milan: The Mitbel index gained 89 to 10,782 as foreign buying offset domestic sales.

Paris: The CAC-40 index rose 7.19 to 2,329.17 on rate hopes.

London: Report, page 20.