Frankfurt - In spite of the market turmoil unleashed by the world financial crisis, Deutsche Bank AG reported Thursday a third-quarter profit helped along by new accounting rules.

Germany's biggest bank said net profit in the three months to the end of September came in at 414 million euros (546.3 million dollars). This compares with a 1.63-billion-euro profit in the same period last year.

"After a period of exceptional market turbulence, the outlook for our business remains challenging," Deutsche chief Josef Ackermann said releasing the results.

"We will balance our dividend policy with our commitment to conserving capital strength in a highly uncertain environment," he said.

Tokyo - NEC Corp returned to the black in the second quarter of fiscal 2008 that runs through March 31.

The Japanese electronics company attributed a net profit of 1.28 billion yen (13.15 million dollars) in the July-September quarter to capital gains from selling shares. The result compared to a net loss of 5.72 billion yen in the same period a year before.

Operating profit for the second quarter plunged 42.4 per cent to 9.28 billion yen from 16.1 billion yen due to slow demand for telecommunication systems and microchips.

NEC reported sales of 1.13 trillion yen, up 0.5 per cent.

Taipei - Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai is negotiating to buy Taiwan's largest newspaper group, the China Times Group, a newspaper said Thursday.

Three parties are seeking to buy the loss-making China Times Group, but Lai's Next Media Group was seen as the likely winner because it is willing to accept a package sale while the other two bidders only want to buy the China Times Group's two profit-making television stations, the Economic Daily News said.

The takeover talks were near completion and Next Media was expected to announce the takeover in early November, the News quoted unnamed industry sources as saying.

Both Next Media and the China Times Group refused to comment on the news report.

Seoul - South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world's second largest maker of computer chips, Thursday posted net losses of 1.67 trillion won (1.3 billion dollars) for the third quarter owing to price slumps and write-offs.

After profits of 168 billion won in the third quarter of 2007, the company reported losses for the fourth consecutive quarter, more than doubling the losses posted for the previous quarter of 711 billion won.

In harsh times where social networking sites are badly hit and are fighting hard to keep afloat, popular business oriented social networking website LinkedIn has registered a decent profit. The company has 370 employees and some 30 million members on their website.