In Brief
Trading in Babis Vovos shares halted till Friday Babis Vovos International Construction SA, a Greek property developer, had its shares suspended from trading on the Athens Exchange at its own request. Trading in the company’s shares has been halted from yesterday until Friday, the Athens Exchange said in an e-mailed statement. Vovos requested the suspension, according to the e-mail, which didn’t give a reason. (Bloomberg) Aegean Airlines cancels flights due to strike Aegean Airlines SA, Greece’s biggest private airline, has canceled all flights for tomorrow because air-traffic controllers will take part in a general strike. Greece’s air-traffic controllers will participate in a 24-hour general strike, forcing the airline to cancel all flights, Athens-based Aegean said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. GSEE, which represents about 2 million workers, and civil service union ADEDY, with 500,000 members, have called the strike to protest against the government’s economic policies. (Bloomberg) Cosco gains Cosco Pacific Ltd, Asia’s third-largest container-terminal operator, jumped the most in a month after Macquarie Group Ltd rated the company «outperform,» citing its global expansion. The China Cosco Holdings Co unit rose 23 percent to HK$7 at the close of trading in Hong Kong. The company was the best performer in the 42-stock Hang Seng Index, which gained 8.7 percent. The company is better placed to withstand the current economic slowdown than previous ones because of expansion outside of China, including a deal to run facilities at Greece’s Piraeus Port, Macquarie said. (Bloomberg) Formula One Bulgaria has set its sights on hosting a Formula One race in the near future, the Bulgarian Motorcycling Federation (BMF) said. «It’ll be very difficult but I think we’ll succeed,» BMF’s president, Bogdan Nikolov, was quoted as saying in the 24 Chasa daily yesterday. Nikolov said they were planning to submit a plan and an application to the International Automobile Federation (FIA) yesterday for consideration by Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone the following day. According to the plan, a circuit is to be built near the Balkan country’s northern town of Pleven. (Reuters) Sentiment darkens Business sentiment in Central and Eastern Europe darkened this autumn with the economic crisis taking a toll particularly on the banking and real estate sectors, according to a survey released yesterday. The Thomson Reuters & OeKB CEE Business Climate index fell to 29 in October, compared with 44 in the previous survey in July. The poll of 400 international firms managing 1,400 companies in the region was taken as the global financial crisis gained speed with the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers and began to seriously hit Central and Eastern European states. «The results show that the mood has worsened amongst direct investors in Central and Eastern Europe,» said Austrian export financing bank Oesterreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB), which prepared the survey. (Reuters)
