American Express Profit Falls On Higher Defaults
American Express, the biggest US credit-card company by purchases, withdrew its 2008 earnings forecast after 2Q profit fell 37% on worse-than-expected consumer defaults. Profit from continuing operations declined to US$655m, or 56 cents a share, from US$1.04b, or 86 cents a year earlier. The average estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was 82 cents. American Express said it added US$600m before taxes to reserves for US loan losses.

Dimension Data To Acquire Remaining 44.9% Stake In Datacraft
Dimension Data, a $3.8b leading global IT solutions and services provider, announced its intention to acquire the remaining 44.9% of the Singapore-listed shares of its Asian subsidiary, Datacraft Asia for US$1.33 per share, translating into a total purchase consideration of approximately US$276m. The acquisition will be effected by way of a Scheme of Arrangement under Singapore law and is being financed with a combination of cash and equity issuance.

Qian Hu’s Bottom-Line Rises 30.6% For 2Q08
Qian Hu Corporation reported a 30.6% rise in net profit to $1.5m for its second quarter ended 30 June 2008 due to stronger sales and lower costs. The company said it expects revenue and profit to continue to rise in FY08, boosted by the increase in sales from its ornamental fish operations, improvement in its accessories export business and positive contributions from its overseas operations in Malaysia, Thailand and China.

Neptune Orient Lines Sees 8% Rise In Container Shipping Volumes
Neptune Orient Lines reported that container shipping volumes increased 8% for the four weeks to 27 June 2008 over the same period last year due to higher volume from the Asia-Europe and Intra-Asia trade lanes. Average revenue per FEU (Forty-foot Equivalent Unit) increased 13% to higher BAF (Bunker Adjustment Factor) collections and higher back-haul freight rates on major trade lanes. Year-to-date, container shipping volumes rose 13% while average revenue per FEU showed a 15% improvement compared to a year ago.

Bio-Treat Plans Business Trust Establishment
Bio-Treat Technology is looking into setting up a business trust that will contain all its water-related infrastructure assets. In light of this, the group will not proceed with its renounceable right issue. Bio-Treat said it currently has an extensive portfolio of large-scale Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) and Transfer-Operate-Transfer (TOT) projects in first-tier cities in the PRC, with 7 out of 15 projects already completed. It expects to complete all its planned projects by the end of FY09 at which point its water treatment capacity is anticipated to be at least 1,000,000 metric tones per day.