SEOUL -- US-based private equity group Ripplewood has emerged as the preferred bidder to buy Daewoo Electronics, the company's leading creditor said yesterday.

A deal for the money-losing consumer electronics maker is hoped to be struck by year-end.

The bid price was not disclosed, but local reports pegged it in the range of  $288 million to $324 million. If correct, that marks up to a 43% drop from a bid submitted last year by a group led by Videocon Industries, which creditors rejected as too low.

Creditors own 97.5% of Daewoo.

TAIPEI – Hon Hai Precision Industry (the trade name of Foxconn) reported net profit of $540 million for its third quarter, down 10% year-over-year, but beating market expectations.
 

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LOS ALTOS, CA – Although capital investment outlays will slow, the communications equipment industry will survive the economic downturn in reasonable shape, says Henderson Ventures.
 
Worldwide equipment production will slow from a 6.8% rate in 2007 to a 3.2% pace this year, according to the research firm. A further deceleration will take growth rates to 2.7% next year before rebounding to 9.6% in 2010.
 
China is expected to achieve a solid 9.6% gain this year. Even so, that pales before the 19.8% burst chalked up during 2007, says Henderson.
 
During the past few years, the total number of handset subscribers has mushroomed as prices have plunged to meet market requirements in developing countries. But a dwindling unserved market, along with a poor economic environment during 2009, is likely to result in a drop in new subscribers, the company predicts.
 
Handset shipments are slated to decelerate sharply, as the economic environment encourages cellphone owners to postpone the purchase of upgraded handsets. Shipment growth is predicted to decelerate from 15.1% in 2007 through 7.8% in 2008 to only 3.9% next year.
 
And given the increased emphasis on developing markets, handset revenues are forecast to be stagnant next year. The ongoing financial crisis is expected to be resolved by 2010. Rejuvenated economic growth and a new replacement cycle will create a 9.5% unit gain that year.

NATICK, MA – Cognex is offering a series of free machine vision seminars.
 
This half-day event explains setup and deployment of vision systems for automated inspection tasks in the automotive, medical and electronics industries, among others.
 
Each seminar combines a basics tutorial with live demonstrations of the four-step process for setting up a machine vision application with EasyBuilder software for In-Sight systems. The tutorial covers how vision systems work in manufacturing applications to accurately inspect, guide, and identify products.
 
The seminars run through December and are held in the US, Canada and Mexico. To register, visit www.cognex.com/seminar.