Munich - Siemens posted a 2.4-billion-euro (3 billion dollars) final quarter loss, mainly as a result of restructuring costs and efforts to root out corruption, the German engineering giant said Thursday.

In the corresponding quarter of the previous business year, the company reported a loss of 74 million euros.

Turnover in the three months up to the end of September in the 2007-2008 business year increased 7 per cent to 21.7 billion euros, while orders were up 4 per cent at 22.2 billion euros, Siemens said.

London, Nov 13: Risk taking is an important aspect of being a successful businessman, says a new study.

To be someone like the Richard Branson, Steve Jobs or Henry Ford, an individual has to take risky business decisions, which can result in positive outcomes during stressful economic circumstances.

The new study led by University of Cambridge scientists has found that riskier decision-makers are much more likely to become entrepreneurs than their managerial counterparts.

Riga - State bail-outs of financial institutions have become almost commonplace in recent months, but still cause a mixture of surprise, fear and sometimes even panic when they are suddenly revealed.

Cairo - Although he rejects the idea that good corporate governance would have decreased the effect of the global financial crisis, Martin Steindl, of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), believes that better corporate governance would have saved some companies from being part of the crisis.

"Such a crisis affects everyone, but when it comes to getting up again, better corporate governance will play a role," says Steindl, who is Programme Manager in Corporate Governance Advisory Services for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, at the IFC. The IFC is part of the World Bank group.

Hong Kong - Hong Kong's flagship airline Cathay Pacific Wednesday released disappointing passenger figures and warned that the outlook for the industry was "challenging."

The airline's passenger figures combined with sister airline Dragonair for October 2008 were up 2.6 per cent compared to the same month in 2007, however, capacity over the same period grew 11.6 per cent.

The amount of cargo and mail carried over the course of the month, was down 7.4 per cent to 114,466 tons compared to the same month last year, Cathay Pacific announced.

Paris - French investment bank Natixis lost 975 million euros (1.23 billion dollars) in trading last month and is to issue a fourth-quarter profits warning, the business daily La Tribune reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, the losses were registered in trading with shares as well as currencies and interest rates.

It remained unclear if the loss was due to unauthorized deals carried out by a small group of traders, as was reportedly the case with Natixis's parent company Caisse d'Epargne, which lost 751 million euros in early October.