Pubs giant Punch Taverns may hack the value of its estate by over £600 million.

Market analysts are projecting a fall of around 40 per cent an annual profit for the company. 

According to market estimates Punch Taverns may see its pre-tax profits to drop to about £161 million as compared with £262 million last year.

The estate values about £6.2 billion. 

BAA, the Glasgow airport operator, has confirmed that it was mulling over plans to close one of its terminals over the winter in order to slash costs.

Donald Morrison, a spokesman for BAA, said the airports operator was pursuing talks with airlines over the possibility of closing Terminal-2 at Glasgow for a few weeks during the winter.

Mr. Morrison said, "We are currently looking at a range of options to reduce costs over the quieter winter months, when we traditionally have fewer passengers."

Citigroup Inc. announced on Friday the sale of its Phibro LLC unit to the US oil producer, Occidental Petroleum Corp. in a move that is expected to solve regulatory problems for the bank.

Occidental Petroleum Corp., a Los Angeles energy company, said it would acquire the rights to Phibro in a deal worth around $250 million.

Speaking on the deal, oil analyst Ben Dell said, “Oxy historically has not been an aggressive hedger or trader.”

Sunrise Senior Living has agreed to sell its 21 assisted living facilities to an affiliate of Tenn.-based Brookdale Senior Living Inc. in a deal worth $204 million.

The properties named to be sold by the Sunrise are in California, Georgia, Colorado, Connecticut, New Mexico, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Brookdale Senior Living said it would finance the deal with around $134 million of mortgage debt plus its cash on hand.

Trinity College, Cambridge has acquired London's O2 Arena in a deal worth £24 million.

Trinity College has bought Meridian Delta Dome, the company that holds the 999-year lease of the entertainment venue.

Under the deal, Trinity College will acquire the rights to the rental income paid by Anschutz Entertainment Group, which runs the venue.

Meridian Delta Dome is a joint venture between UK's Quintain Estates and the Australian company, Lend Lease.

The airports operator BAA said there was only a modest decline in passenger traffic in September, depicting green shoots for the market recovery.

In September, BAA handled 13 million passengers, representing a decline of 2.6 per cent from a year earlier. This decline is similar to the July and August performances at airports operated by BAA.

Six months earlier in March the rate of decline was reported at more than 11 per cent.

As per a fresh study by the UK Energy Research Council, there is a "significant risk" that the worldwide production conventional oil could peak and decline by 2020.

Speaking on the findings, UKERC's Robert Gross said that the era of cheap oil is at an end.

Robert Gross further added, "It doesn't suddenly come to an end, obviously it's a gradual change, but we're moving away from easy and cheap oil to increasingly difficult and expensive oil."

Struggling British sportswear retailer JJB Sports PLC has confirmed that it has plans to lift £100 million via share placing.

The recent move of the company is expected to secure the future of the ailing sportswear's future.

The retailer is expected to place the new shares at a big discount at around 25p. In the recent trading shares in JJB Sports PLC closed at 34½p.

Sources said that the share placing and open offer is being underwritten by Panmure Gordon and Numis Securities

Germany's biggest utility, E. on, has delayed plans for a new coal-fired power plant at Kingsnorth in Kent by two to three years, citing lower demand for electricity because of the recession.

Speaking on the issue, a spokesman for E. On said that the recession had "pushed back the need for a new plant in the UK to around 2016 because of the reduction in demand for electricity."

Environmentalists have also been opposing the construction of a new power-plant at Kingsnorth.

UK's biggest bookmaker, Ladbrokes, has plans to raise new equity via a rights issue worth £300 million in a move that will help the company in hacking down its £960 million debt.

Sources informed that Ladbrokes has been examining the possibility of a rights issue in order to trim down its debt. However, the bookmarker declined to comment on the issue.

The bookmarker is expected to issue shares at a discount of 35-40 per cent to Wednesday's closing share price of 181.2p.

Ireland's second-biggest airline, Aer Lingus, revealed its plans to axe as many as 676 jobs by the end of 2011 in an effort to save almost 100 million euros annually.

Apart from hacking jobs the carrier will also reduce the pay of employees who earn more than 35,000 euros per year.

Christoph Mueller, CEO of the Irish airline, said, "However, we must transform the business now to ensure that Aer Lingus has a business model for the long-term and can deliver value for all stakeholders."

Chicago-based Boeing Company announced Tuesday that it would delay its new 747-8 Freighter and would take a $1 billion charge due to production and design problems in the aircraft.

It is the second time in the past four months that the company has announced delay in delivering a new aircraft model.

In June, Boeing Co. had announced a further postponement of a highly anticipated plane, 787.

Company's recent hit will result in a combined charge of $3.5 billion from the 747 and 787 programs in the third quarter.

British flag carrier British Airways has revealed its plans to axe around 1,700 full-time cabin crew jobs and freeze pay to stem losses due to global downturn that has hacked demand for air travel.

The recent move of the British Airways has triggered fears that the workers could resort to strikes.

The proposed cuts will slash the total number of cabin crew-related jobs from 14,000 to 12,300.

Speaking on the topic, spokesman for the British airways said, "Revenues are down, so we must reduce costs to restore profitability."

Edinburgh-based chipmaker Wolfson Microelectronics, whose components are used in products like flat TVs and games consoles, has warned that its results for the third-quarter would be below market expectations.

Wolfson Microelectronics said that the loss of the Apple iPhone 3GS contract would drag third-quarter revenue down to about $35 million, around $4 million less than market projections.

The chipmaker also said that fourth-quarter order backlog was appearing worse than usual.

The European Commission said Friday that it had some antitrust objections to the proposed co-operation among the American Airlines, British Airways and Iberia on transatlantic routes as it could cut competition.

The European Union's antitrust watchdog informed that it had sent a statement of objections the concerned three airlines.