Business and City in Brief (CORRECTED)

CORRECTION (PUBLISHED 15 JULY 1992) APPENDED TO THIS ARTICLE

WORLD MARKETS

NEW YORK: Firm performances by financial and technology shares helped to lift the Dow Jones average 6.75 points to close at 3,337.31.

TOKYO: The Nikkei average posted its best close for more than a month as futures-linked and dealer buying pushed it 418.01 higher to 17,201.73.

HONG KONG: Heavy buying in HSBC Holdings lifted the Hang Seng 104.49 to 6,085.85.

SYDNEY: Poor retail trade figures reinforced pessimism, and the All Ordinaries index dipped 5.5 points to 1,638.9.

JOHANNESBURG: Continued political jitters helped to send the index down 35 points to 3,448.

FRANKFURT: Fears of tighter credit policies and higher taxes sent the DAX to a two-month low, down 17.98 at 1,736.5.

ZURICH: The weak dollar and gloom on other bourses hit sentiment. The all-share index gave up 10.7 points to 1,159.

MILAN: A late flurry of buying took the MIB off its low to end 0.23 per cent lower at 866.

LONDON: Report, page 23.

AT&T SETTLES WITH UNIONS

Unions representing 127,000 American Telephone and Telegraph workers have reached a settlement with the company on local issues, clearing the way for a national ratification vote on a three-year contract.

The basic wage of most workers will rise by 12.3 per cent. Each employee will get dollars 3,000 worth of AT&T stocks and their pension benefits will rise by 13 per cent.

HEPATITIS DRUG

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Schering-Plough's recombinant Interferon alfa-2b (Intron A) injections as the first treatment for chronic hepatitis B. Every year, some 300,000 Americans become infected with the virus that causes hepatits B, the FDA noted. The FDA approved the drug in 1991 for treating hepatitis C.

CASSETTE ROW

The EC has accused the Japanese government of abusing Gatt settlement procedures by contesting the EC's imposition of anti-dumping duties on Japanese audio cassette imports.

SICK SCHEME

Daimler-Benz is to allow workers up to one year of unpaid leave to care for sick family members while holding on to their jobs. About 90 per cent of its workforce is eligible.

SPANISH INFLATION

Spain's underlying inflation rate rose 0.3 per cent in June, the same as in May and in June 1991. The underlying year-on- year rate rose 6.7 per cent compared with a 6.3 per cent rise in June 1991 and a 6.8 per cent rise last month.

BEER DOWN

Figures for beer production in the United Kingdom for the first quarter of 1992 were 7,932,692 barrels, a decrease of 2.2 per cent on the first quarter of 1991.

SALARY RISE

The salary of Jeffrey Herbert, chief executive of Charter Consolidated, the mining and building products company, rose 32 per cent last year from pounds 188,000 to pounds 248,000. Pre-tax profits fell from pounds 77.5m to pounds 73.8m.

APPEALS OPEN

Four City executives have begun their appeals against conviction in the Blue Arrow case. The convictions are being challenged in the Court of Appeal as 'unsafe and unsatisfactory' because of the length and complexity of the case.

TV JOBS TO GO

HTV is to make 62 of its staff in Cardiff redundant because of a fall in advertising revenue. Channel executives, who are to meet union officials today, said most redundancies would involve technical workers.

ITALIAN SELL-OFF

(First Edition)

Four of Italy's largest state-owned companies - IRI, ENI, ENEL, and INA - are to be partially privatised to help ease Italy's dollars 150bn (78bn pounds) budget deficit. The privatisation should not increase Italy's debt because the Treasury will receive the profits from the sell-offs but will not inherit the companies' debts. The government will gain a total of 60,000bn lire (28bn pounds).

CORRECTION

In yesterday's final edition job cuts at HTV were wrongly attributed to a fall in advertising revenue. HTV has said they resulted from a change in the way the company makes programmes for S4C.