London - Pre-tax profits at HBOS, Britai

Frankfurt - BASF, the world's largest chemicals concern, posted strong growth in sales in the second quarter in results released Thursday, largely as a result of higher natural gas production.

The German-based group exceeded analysts' expectations with an 11- per-cent rise in sales over the quarter to 16.3 billion euros (25.4 billion dollars).

Bottom-line profits rose 27 per cent to 1.3 billion euros, also beating forecasts, while profits on an EBIT before special items basis rose 19 per cent to 2.4 billion euros.

Frankfurt - Germany's biggest bank Deutsche Bank AG reported Thursday a 64 per cent fall in second quarter earnings on the back of write-downs totalling 2.3 billion euros (3.6 billion dollars).

The Frankfurt-based bank said that net profit fell to 649 million euros from 1.78 billion euros in the second quarter last year.

This comes in the wake of a 311-million-euro pretax loss run up by Deutsche's key investment banking business as a result of the continuing fallout from the financial market crisis triggered by the US subprime mortgage upheaval.

Tokyo - Japan's TDK Corp plans to purchase German electronics parts maker EPCOS AG for a maximum of 200 billion yen (1.85 billion dollars), which would be one of the largest acquisitions in the industry, media reports said Thursday.

TDK hopes to boost its operations through the deal amidst harsh competition in Asia.

TDK is to launch a friendly tender offer for EPCOS shares, which are listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, to make it a subsidiary by the end of this year, Jiji Press quoted informed sources as saying.

Berlin - German-based cash-and-carry group Metro declared a loss for the first half of the year as a result of restructuring costs in its home market.

Metro chief executive officer Eckhard Cordes said the group faced "an increasingly difficult economic environment" but nevertheless described the period as "successful" for the company.

The loss before interest and tax (EBIT) came in at 130 million euros (203 million dollars) for the first half, down from a profit of 437 million euros in the same period last year.

Wellington - New Zealand's Court of Appeal on Thursday vetoed a takeover bid that would have restricted competition in the country's chain store retail trade.

The court overturned a High Court decision to allow either the locally owned Foodstuffs supermarket chain or Australia's Woolworths group to take over 128 variety and discount stationery stores of The Warehouse.

Both Woolworths and Foodstuffs have been vying to take over The Warehouse chain since each bought 10 per cent stakes in 2006.

The competition watchdog Commerce Commission rejected takeover applications by both groups in June 2007, but the High Court overruled that decision in November.