Headlines

An auction of the wireless assets of bankrupt Nortel Networks will go ahead as planned on Friday, despite objections from Research in Motion that it was blocked from submitting a $1.1 billion bid for the unit earlier this week, Reuters reported. Nortel said RIM, the maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry smartphone, was blocked from the auction because it refused to comply with procedural requirements, including confidentiality clauses and a standstill provision requiring RIM to obtain Nortel's consent to bid for any other of its assets if it is successful in the auction this week.

ING Groep NV is seeking buyers for its private-banking business in Europe and Asia, according to people familiar with the situation, in the latest step by the financial-services firm to slim down after it turned to the Dutch government for aid last year, The Wall Street Journal reported. The sale process is at an early stage and any deal is likely several months away, the people said.

Porsche on Thursday fired Wendelin Wiedeking, the high-profile chief executive who rejuvenated the nearly bankrupt sports car maker in the early 1990s but stumbled as a massive debt load torpedoed plans to take over the much larger Volkswagen concern, which will now absorb Porsche itself, The New York Times reported.

Bermuda-based Kingate Management Ltd. has been given an extension until next Monday to respond to a lawsuit in which it is accused of withdrawing $255 million in "fake profit" from funds invested with fraudster Bernard Madoff, The Royal Gazette reported. The extension, requested by Madoff trustee Irving Picard, who is suing Kingate, was granted by US bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland in New York this week. Mr.

Poland chose potential bidders for Warsaw Stock Exchange SA and announced plans to privatize strategic energy and mining companies in an effort to plug a gaping budget deficit, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move to sell government stakes in copper miner KGHM Polska Miedz SA and oil refinery Grupa Lotos SA took markets by surprise. Many analysts had been skeptical the government would carry through with such politically sensitive sales amid a recession.

Gothenburg-based Volvo Cars made a second-quarter pre-tax loss of $231 million, compared with a loss of $120 million a year ago, owner Ford Motor Company said in a report on Thursday, The Swedish Wire reported. Second quarter revenue was $2.9 billion, down from $4.3 billion a year ago. During the period Volvo produced 74,000 cars, 38,000 fewer than last year. The production is expected to be low even during the current quarter; Ford predicts Volvo to make 2,000 fewer cars during the third quarter than last year. Ford, currently the only major U.S.

Lower revenue and bad debts pushed profit in the second quarter down 71 percent for Deutsche Post DHL, The Journal of Commerce reported. The world's biggest logistics company warned of tough market conditions ahead. The Bonn-based company, which ceased domestic express deliveries in the United States in January after mounting losses, forecast full year profit of $1.7 billion compared with $3.42 billion in 2008. It expects to post a net profit in 2009 thanks to cash proceeds from the sale of its banking unit, Deutsche Postbank.

A private equity firm specializing in distressed assets says it is bidding $725 million to acquire the cell phone network assets of Nortel Networks Corp., topping a previous $650 million bid from Nokia Siemens Networks, The Associated Press reported. MPAM Wireless, an affiliate of MatlinPatterson Global Opportunities Partners III LP, said it submitted the bid for Nortel's CDMA and LTE assets to Nortel and its creditors Tuesday.

The eleventh-hour disclosure on Monday of Research in Motion Ltd.'s desire to buy certain assets of Nortel Networks Corp. raises questions about how well the debtor-in-possession insolvency-protection process under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act is serving the interests of creditors, according to an editorial in The Globe and Mail.

The European Commission on Wednesday cleared the Polish government's state aid of €251 million ($356.4 million) to the Gdansk Shipyard, ending a long-running legal battle, The Wall Street Journal reported. The commission, the European Union's executive arm, has been investigating state subsidies for the historic shipyard, where the Solidarity trade-union movement was born, since 2004. Much of the state aid cleared by the commission has already been paid to the shipyard. The commission said in its ruling that the state subsidies gave the shipyard an unfair advantage over rivals.