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MAN

MAN ‘optimistic’ over Scania takeover

German engineering conglomerate MAN said Thursday that it remained optimistic about its chances of taking over Swedish truck maker Scania after booking higher profits in the third quarter.

MAN, which has recently transformed itself from a widely diversified group to focus on trucks, diesel engines and turbo systems, said in a statement it booked bottom-line net profit of 325 million euros (415 million dollars) in the period from July to September, up 80 percent on the year.

Operating profit jumped by 64 percent to 279 million euros on an 18-percent rise in sales to 3.3 billion euros.

All divisions contributed to growth, driven by restructuring measures and favourable economic conditions, MAN said.

Looking ahead to the whole year, MAN was targetting operating profit in excess of one billion euros, and higher sales, the group said.

The group’s Swedish chairman Håkan Samuelsson, a Scania director before joining MAN, said he was optimistic with regard to MAN’s planned takeover of Scania, despite Swedish group’s rejection of the move.

“I’m convinced that we’ll reach a positive outcome,” Samuelsson said.

MAN is expecting to publish its latest takeover offer for Scania in mid-November. It plans to raise additional capital to finance the deal.

HOMELESS

Jealous Italian admits burning homeless man alive

An Italian who doused a homeless man in petrol and set him alight as he slept has confessed to the killing, telling police he acted out of jealousy.

Jealous Italian admits burning homeless man alive
Stefano79/Depositphotos

Giuseppe Pecoraro, a petrol pump attendant, admitted the attack on Saturday evening, less than 24 hours after Marcello Cimino burned to death outside a mission run by Capuccin monks in Palermo, Sicily.

“He thought that Cimino was after his wife,” local police chief Rodolfo Ruperti told reporters. “They had had a fight about her a few days earlier.”

Pecoraro was arrested with burns on his hands, apparently incurred during a fatal attack which was captured by security cameras and posted on the websites of several Italian media.

The video footage shows the hooded attacker approaching 45-year-old as he slept under heavy bedding in a portico outside the mission, which ran a soup kitchen for the homeless.

He empties a bucket of flammable liquid on to the bedding, takes a lighter from his pocket and sets it alight, sparking an instant blaze that the attacker only just escaped himself.

Neighbours heard the victim screaming but he was dead by the time emergency services arrived at the scene of a killing, which was described as “an act of pure barbarism” by Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando.

Cimino had ended up living on the streets after separating from his wife three years ago.

His killer, Pecoraro, has been charged with murder and a local prosecutor has also opened an investigation for breach of judicial secrecy over the leaking of the video footage to the media.

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