ECONOMY

In Brief

Forthnet plays with idea of Telestet partnership Internet service provider Forthnet said yesterday it could consider the idea of a business partnership with mobile operator Telestet. The two companies basically offer complementary services and this… makes, in principle, the idea worth examining further, the company said in a letter to the Athens bourse. The company yesterday reported that nine-month pretax profit rose 3.21 percent year-on-year to 291 million drachmas. Earnings before tax, interest and depreciation increased 13.4 percent to 785 million drachmas on turnover of 4.5 billion, up 20.73 percent year-on-year. Forthnet shares rose 5.01 percent to 7.12 euros. CEO Pantelis Tzortzakis is due to give a press conference at the Athens Plaza Hotel today at 2.30 p.m. Greek National Tourist Organization targets US market The Greek National Tourist Organization (EOT) has successfully convinced US tour operators to promote Greece as a tourist destination, the result of lobbying by EOT General Manager Kostas Katsiyiannis who is currently in New York for the annual conference of the American Society of Travel Agents. The US agents however called on the Greek body to intensify its advertising campaign, EOT said in a statement yesterday. It said there were requests for the organization to implement a more aggressive policy towards the US market, especially in view of the expected decline in US travel and the subsequent intensifying competition. Exports down. Greek exports fell 17 percent to $4,695 million in the first half of the year, compared to the same period last year, while imports shrank 6 percent to $14.454 million, the National Statistics Service said yesterday. If calculated in euros, the respective declines are 11 and 1 percent. The largest decreases in export categories were in industrial products, raw materials and petroleum products, and the smallest in farm products. IPOs. The initial public offering of Intracom Constructions, a subsidiary of telecoms equipment maker Intracom, was oversubscribed 11.85 times, underwriters said. Intracom Constructions was seeking to raise 23.1 million euros and offered the public 7.0 million new shares, privately placing 250,000 shares. The company specializes in integrated turnkey telecoms projects. IT firm Rainbow Computers will seek to raise 2.2 million euros via an initial public offering set to run November 21 to 23, it said in a statement. Rainbow Computers, which will list on the Athens bourse’s small-cap market, is an Apple computers and products representative in Greece and Cyprus. Rainbow will offer the public 375,000 new shares at a price range of 5.46 to 6.00 euros. (Reuters) Hewlett Packard-Logismos. Hewlett Packard Hellas and Logismos accounting-software maker are to operate a joint financing program for the modernization of IT systems of small and mid-sized firms, they announced in a press briefing in Thessaloniki yesterday. The program, titled Logismos-Hewlett Packard Technology Finance, concerns promotion of Logismos’s Momentum EPR product, which addresses the management needs of projects budgeted at 20-40 million drachmas. -In Caribs, Int. Sea W. for 70,000 tons of cargo loading Dec. 1, discharging US Gulf, has fixed M/T Torben Spirit at W/S 128.75.

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