News In Brief

The Federal Trade Commission put on hold indefinitely a lawsuit challenging the $30 billion merger between BP Amoco Plc. and Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO), after the latter agreed to sell its Alaska oil assets to Phillips Petroleum Co. for $7 billion. The FTC said it would resume talks soon with BP Amoco and ARCO on whether the revised arrangement resolved its antitrust concerns.

BMW and a little-known private venture capital fund in London said they'd agreed in principle on a deal that would rid the German luxury carmaker of its money-losing British subsidiary, Rover Group Ltd. No terms were announced, but Alchemy Partners appears prepared to assume control of Rover's sales and service networks, Longbridge assembly plant in Birmingham, England, and production of all but the Mini compact and highly profitable Land Rover models. BMW paid $1.2 billion for the company in 1994 and has since invested $3.4 billion more. But Rover sales fell 26 percent last year and are down another 10.3 percent since Jan. 1. The Rover Group will be renamed MG Car Co., an Alchemy statement said.

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society

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