COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Rio Tinto agrees on protection plan

Rio Tinto said on Monday it has agreed a heritage protection plan with an Indigenous group for a project in West Australia as it looks to avoid a repeat of the backlash it faced for destroying the sacred Juukan Gorge rock shelters.

In a statement, the company said the agreement, with the Yinhawangka Aboriginal Corporation (YAC), will ensure a new co-designed management plan protects social and cultural heritage values in Rio's proposed development of the Western Range iron ore project in the Pilbara region.

Rio said the collaboration would ensure the mines were designed to reduce impacts on social and cultural heritage. Decisions on environmental matters and mine planning will be made jointly with the Yinhawangka people, it said.

The announcement follows a massive public and investor uproar following Rio's destruction of the 46 000-year-old Juukan Gorge rock shelters in Western Australia for an iron ore mine. That uproar led to the departure of top executives including former Chief Executive Officer Jean-Sebastien Jacques and the Chairman Simon Thompson.

"We know we haven't always got this right in the past. We have learned and continue to learn a lot from this co-designed process which is the manner in which we want to work with all Traditional Owners," said Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Simon Trott. -Reuters

Lockheed scraps US$4.4 bln deal

US arms maker Lockheed Martin Corp called off plans on Sunday to acquire rocket engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc for US$4.4 billion amid opposition from US antitrust enforcers.

The Federal Trade Commission sued to block the deal in late-January on the grounds that it would allow Lockheed to use its control of Aerojet to hurt other defense contractors. Missile maker Raytheon Technologies was an outspoken opponent of the proposed acquisition.

The merger, which was announced in late 2020, drew criticism as it would give Lockheed a dominant position over solid fuel rocket motors a vital piece of the US missile industry.

Lockheed's Chief Executive James Taiclet said the acquisition would have improved efficiency, speed and cut costs for the US government, but that terminating the agreement was in its stakeholders' best interest.

Aerojet, which reports fourth quarter earnings later this week, said in a separate statement that it still expects a strong "future performance," despite the scrapped merger. -Reuters

DBS Group profit rebounds

DBS Group flagged strong business momentum after its profit rose to a record last year, cementing a recovery for Southeast Asia's largest lender as pandemic-hit economies rebound and boost loan growth and asset quality.

Singapore lenders are also expected to be big beneficiaries of rising interest rates, while the city-state's economy is forecast to grow 3% to 5% this year after expanding at its fastest annual pace in over a decade in 2021.

Krishna Guha, an analyst at Jefferies said that while the bank's fourth-quarter profit was slightly below estimates due to lower-than-expected non-interest income, growth in other revenue metrics was "outstanding."

"Guidance for 2022 is in line with our current inputs but for the credit costs, and is likely to be the next driver of positive earnings revisions," Guha said in a note.

DBS, the first Singapore bank to report this season, said net profit for October-December rose to S$1.39 billion (US$1.03 billion) and follows a particularly weak pandemic-hit year when profit tumbled to a three-year low in the fourth quarter. -Reuters

Credit Suisse investors in the dark

Weary Credit Suisse investors fear a long wait for the bank to get back on piste after a string of scandals which have wiped billions off its market value and piled pressure on management.

While Switzerland's second-largest bank says that it can create value by serving its wealthy clients with "care and entrepreneurial spirit", the market is not yet convinced and its share price has dropped by nearly a third in a year, knocking some 10 billion Swiss francs (US$11 billion) off its valuation.

Meanwhile, other big European banks, buoyed by the prospect of rising interest rates, have gained almost 50% in stock market value over the same period and its cross-town Zurich rival UBS has left Credit Suisse for dust.

"Credit Suisse has a long list of scandals and problems," Stefan Sauerschell, a bond investor with Union Investment, said of the bank, which was founded in 1856 and says it has 48 770 employees and 3 510 relationship managers around the world.

"We always thought the management process would be improved and then the next punch landed. If there was another billion-plus loss, it would be a catastrophe," Sauerschell added. -Reuters

Life Insurance files IPO papers

State-run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has filed draft papers with the market regulator to sell 5% of its shares to potentially raise nearly US$8 billion, dwarfing the biggest IPO in Asia's third-largest economy by a considerable margin.

The offering is crucial to the Narendra Modi-led government's efforts to meet its sharply trimmed divestment target for the current financial year and will provide a measure of the success of the government's pro-market policies.

India's largest insurer will be selling 316.25 million shares, according to the draft prospectus filed on Sunday, amounting to nearly 5% of the post-offer paid up share capital.

The government could raise a little more than 600 billion Indian rupees (US$7.97 billion) from the issuance rather than the initial plan for about 900 billion rupees, having trimmed the offering because of market conditions, a government source said.

The listing is likely to be completed by the end of March, the source added. -Reuters