Business and City in Brief

Pay rises halve for directors

Salary rises for company directors have halved in the past year because of the recession, according to figures from the Monks Partnership, the remuneration adviser.

Main board directors' salaries have increased by 7.7 per cent, compared with 14.3 per cent in the year to July 1991, while senior managers below board level saw their rises fall to 5.3 per cent from 9.3 per cent.

Airline push

Northwest Airlines and KLM are stepping up their co-operation after last week's 'open skies' pact between the US and the Netherlands. KLM bought a 20 per cent stake in Northwest three years ago, and the two already have marketing agreements.

Waterford row

Workers at Waterford Crystal in Ireland have rejected a plan for 550 redundancies, 30 per cent pay cuts, a two-year pay freeze and a five-year no-strike agreement.

US directory

US West and France Telecom are to offer electronic directory services for consumers in parts of North America. The system will be based on France's Minitel electronic directory.

Wheat protest

Australia, one of the world's leading wheat exporters, has sent a letter of protest to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade condemning increased sales of subsidised wheat by the US.

German orders

East German industry orders in June rose an unadjusted 26 per cent from May but were down 0.8 per cent from a year earlier, the Economics Ministry said.

TSB promotion

TSB Group has promoted John Elbourne to chief operating officer of retail banking and insurance. Mr Elbourne also joins the board.

Eastern promise

Foreign investment soared to dollars 3.2bn in Malaysia in 1991, dollars 1.8bn in Thailand and dollars 2.4bn in China, according to International Finance Corp, private- sector arm of the IMF.

Swiss seizure

Werner Rey, a fugitive financier wanted by Switzerland, has been tracked down in the Bahamas and his passport seized, the Swiss Justice Ministry said. His company, Omni, folded last year in the largest corporate failure in Swiss history.

Boeing orders

Romania's Tarom airlines has ordered six Boeing 737-300 aircraft and taken out options on six others for a total of dollars 470m, the US manufacturer said.

Thorn contract

Thorn EMI's electronics unit said it has been awarded a contract worth more than pounds 20m to develop and make the active fuse for a new missile for the Royal Air Force.

Accounting help

Nearly half of Britain's small to medium-sized accountancy practices believe they need help from experienced business managers to tackle a wide range of problems facing the profession.

Funding ban

France's Socialist government, mired in scandals over party finances, proposed banning all donations from business to political parties to fight corruption.

World Markets

New York: A firmer dollar and a technical rebound from oversold levels helped the Dow Jones Industrial Average close 10.80 points higher at 3,271.39.

Tokyo: Futures-linked buying in late afternoon powered the Nikkei average ahead 593.13 points to 18,875.55.

Hong Kong: Optimism over financing the colony's new airport helped the Hang Seng to 5,726.99, a 26.4-point gain.

Sydney: The All Ordinaries index lost another 23 points to a 17-month low of 1,478.9.

Johannesburg: Gold shares took a battering in the aftermath of the Ciskei massacre. The overall index fell 45 points to a 12-month low of 3,085.

Frankfurt: Gloomy trade in a thin market sent the DAX index down 19.29 to 1,525.26.

Paris: Weaker bond prices pulled the CAC-40 index down 6.9 points to 1.756.77.

Milan: Boosted by reports of the impending privatisation of Credito Italiano, the MIB climbed 1.82 per cent to 729.