Sintex Industries, a market leader in the plastic and textiles business segments, has acquired 90% stake in Geiger Technik Gmbh (Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany) for Euro 35.6 million.

Berlin  - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan she was relieved that his ruling party had escaped a constitutional ban, her spokesman said Thursday in Berlin.

The proposed ban on his AKP group failed by a slender margin to win confirmation Wednesday in an Ankara court.

Merkel spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said stability and democratic order in Turkey were central concerns for the chancellor and she had conveyed her relief about the outcome to Erdogan.

Turkey was a major partner for Germany and the European Union and a NATO ally, he said.

Hanover - Giant German auto supplier, Continental AG, which is attempting to fend off a hostile takeover bid, reported Thursday a 36-per-cent fall in second-quarter earnings.

The Hanover-based tyremaker and brake systems manufacturer said net profit fell to 194 million euros (303 million dollars) from 303 million euros in the same period last year.

This follows the company's 11.4 billion-euros purchase last year of Siemens VDO auto parts business.

Continental is facing an 11.3 billion-euros takeover bid from the much-smaller family-owned auto supplier group Schaeffler, which said it already controls about 36 per cent of its bigger takeover target.

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.