Business and City in Brief

BA AND VIRGIN SETTLE FOR POUNDS 2.65m

British Airways has agreed to pay Virgin Atlantic pounds 2.65m plus legal costs to settle a maintenance claim brought by Virgin.

The claim relates to damage alleged to have occurred in 1988 when BA was maintaining Virgin aircraft and is not related to the 'dirty tricks' dispute between the two companies.

STRICTER HSBC RULES

Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation is to make its rules on mortgage lending stricter. It extended its application fee placed on shelf companies of 0.5 per cent of the mortgage, with a minimum of HKdollars 5,000, to shelf companies held by close family members. Such companies used to face a fee of HKdollars 2,000. The idea is to curb mortgage book growth, compensate for higher risk and cool the superheated market.

EAST MIDLANDS JOB

East Midlands Electricity has appointed Robert Davies as finance director from 1 February. Mr Davies previously held senior positions with Ford, where he was ultimately finance director for Spain, and was later finance director at Ferranti International. He succeeds Michael Carus, who is retiring.

GAINING ALTITUDE

The Association of European Airlines members' international passenger traffic grew by 7.9 per cent in 1993 from the previous year to 316.5bn revenue passenger kilometres. Passengers carried by the AEA's 24 airlines rose by 9 million to 121 million on international scheduled routes.

NO REFERENCE

Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, will not refer Transamerica's acquisition of Tiphook's container division to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

FUELLING RECOVERY

Shell Oil, the US unit of Royal Dutch Shell, reported a rise in fourth quarter net income from dollars 71m to dollars 152m. For 1993 the company's net income was dollars 781m compared with a loss of dollars 190m.

BELGIAN BIFFA

Severn Trent's waste disposal subsidiary Biffa is paying pounds 11.1m for Cotrans, a Belgian collector of domestic and industrial waste. The deal makes Biffa one of the market leaders in Belgium.

WORLD MARKETS

NEW YORK: Impressive GDP figures sent shares higher. By the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 19.13 points ahead at 3,945.43.

TOKYO: Institution-led selling pulled the Nikkei average down 133.91 points to 18,757.88.

HONG KONG: Profit-taking reversed strong opening gains and left the Hang Seng index 92.59 points weaker at 11,377.83.

SYDNEY: Heavy options-related trading took the All Ordinaries index up 9.2 points to 2,259.9.

BOMBAY: After reaching a 20- month high in mid-session the index fell back nearly 100 points to end 16.57 easier at 4,052.82.

JOHANNESBURG: The slump in the bullion price drove the overall index down 67 points to 4,725.

PARIS: The CAC-40 index moved ahead strongly to close 32.22 points to the good at 2,313.17.

FRANKFURT: In moderate trade the DAX rose 8.33 points to 2,133.47.

ZURICH: Another record was established as the SPI climbed 20.24 points to 1,986.62 in a second day of heavy trade.

LONDON: Report, page 18.