Hungarian airline Malev halts operations

BUDAPEST: Hungary's national airline Malev said early yesterday that it had grounded its planes after running out of cash almost a month after the European Union said the carrier must pay back state aid. "At 0500 GMT on February 3, after 66 years of almost continuous operation, Malev stopped taking off," Malev chief executive Lorant Limburger told a news conference. The immediate reason was a refusal by Israeli ground staff to service a Malev flight in Tel Aviv without immediate payment of a "hefty sum," Limburger said, adding the airline would have been unable to foot further similar bills.

Oil traders nervous as Sudan oil spat drags

KHARTOUM: Global oil traders are nervously watching a dragging dispute over compensation between Sudan and breakaway South Sudan, whose impact reaches beyond major buyer China, analysts say. The South announced last Sunday it had nearly completed a protest shutdown of its oil production the fledgling nation's top revenue source after talks in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa failed again to resolve a disagreement with Sudan over oil fees. Khartoum admits to confiscating 1.7 million barrels of South Sudanese crude since vowing in November to take 23 percent of southern oil exports as payment in kind during the fee dispute. The South calls this "theft".

HK's Hutch to buy Orange Austria

HONG KONG: Hong Kong's Hutchison 3G will buy Orange Austria from France Telecom and a private equity fund in a deal valued at €1.3 billion (US$1.7 billion) including debt, expanding the corporate footprint in Europe of one of Asia's richest men. The deal by the unit of Hutchison Whampoa follows a cluster of outbound M&A transactions from Asia in early 2012 as firms with strong cash piles and low debt buy assets in Europe, where economies are struggling with the debt crisis. Hutchison said yesterday it would buy 100 per cent of Orange Austria.

Italy seeking to end IMF monitoring exception

MILAN: Italy is discussing with the International Monetary Fund ways to soften the terms of an enhanced surveillance agreed last November by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a source close to the matter said yesterday. The eurozone third-largest economy had been forced to request a monitoring mission from the IMF to placate worried investors as its borrowing costs rose to dangerously high levels.

Agencies