New Delhi - French auto maker Renault has invited India's Bajaj Auto Ltd to join a 1-billion-dollar manufacturing venture with its partner Nissan Motor company, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Renault and Nissan, which are developing a 2,500-dollar car with two-wheeler maker Bajaj, were also negotiating with the Indian firm to extend their venture to market and distribute Renault and Nissan vehicles to be made in Chennai city, the Economic Times reported.

The newspaper, citing industry sources, reported that Renault and Bajaj officials met recently in connection with this issue but Bajaj Auto managing director Rajiv Bajaj declined to comment.

Tokyo - Japan's TDK Corp plans to purchase German electronics parts maker EPCOS AG for a maximum of 200 billion yen (1.85 billion dollars), which would be one of the largest acquisitions in the industry, media reports said Thursday.

TDK hopes to boost its operations through the deal amidst harsh competition in Asia.

TDK is to launch a friendly tender offer for EPCOS shares, which are listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, to make it a subsidiary by the end of this year, Jiji Press quoted informed sources as saying.

Berlin - German-based cash-and-carry group Metro declared a loss for the first half of the year as a result of restructuring costs in its home market.

Metro chief executive officer Eckhard Cordes said the group faced "an increasingly difficult economic environment" but nevertheless described the period as "successful" for the company.

The loss before interest and tax (EBIT) came in at 130 million euros (203 million dollars) for the first half, down from a profit of 437 million euros in the same period last year.

India’s leading Engineering Procurement and Construction Conglomerate IVRCL Infrastructures & Projects Ltd (IVRCL) has received an order worth Rs 3.58 billion from the Irrigation & CAD depa

The issue between Sun Pharmaceutical Industries and Israel’s Taro Pharmaceuticals has been in the main headlines from quite some time now. Though the former is still very keen to takeover the latter, but the legal fight between the two could delay the process. The news was broken by the Mumbai based Sun Pharma’s chairman and managing director, Dilip Shanghvi, who ruled out an out-of-court settlement with Taro Pharma.