Seoul - Shares fell more than 2 p

Seoul - South Korean companies and financial markets will feel the after-effect of the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in the short term, but officials and analysts are confident that the economy can cope with the turmoil in the long term.

Finance Minister Kang Man Soo told the parliament's financial committee on Wednesday he expected that foreign investors would continue to abandon their interests in the country for the time being.

But it would be unlikely that South Korea will suffer serious repercussions from the current US financial woes, despite the flight of foreign investors, Kang was quoted by the public broadcast station KBS as saying.

Seoul - Shares rebounded Wednesday on the Seoul stock exchange in reaction to US government plans to bail out the troubled insurance giant American International Group Inc (AIG).

Seoul - US memory card maker SanDisk Corp has rejected Samsung Electronics Co's hostile 5.85-billion-dollar takeover bid, calling it "inadequate."

In a statement released after the markets closed Tuesday in the United States, the Milpitas, California-based SanDisk said its board unanimously decided against the South Korean electronic giant's 26-dollar-per-share offer because it "significantly undervalues SanDisk given the long-term prospects of its business."

Samsung retorted Wednesday that its 26-dollar-per-share cash offer represented a premium of 80 per cent of Monday's stock price and SanDisk "continues to cling to unrealistic expectations on both its standalone market value and an appropriate merger price."

Seoul - Shares nosedived Tuesday on the Seoul stock exchange, sending the benchmark Kospi Index down more than 6 per cent, as the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank in the US caused panic among inve

Seoul - Share