Evening Standard, London, business briefs column.

Evening Standard, London Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Sep. 23--QUINN TEES OFF WITH WENTWORTH OFFER: Irish entrepreneur Sean Quinn has bid UKpound 122 million for Wentworth golf club, UKpound 12 million more than the offer from retailer Richard Caring. Wentworth's 60 percent owner Chelsfield has set a UKpound 135 million hurdle for any successful further bid. Wentworth holders who have exercised pre-emption rights include new Savoy owner Quinlan Private.

TRUMP CALLS OFF UKpound 980M DEBT TALKS: Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, trying to restructure $1.8 billion (UKpound 980 million) in debt, says that it and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, an affiliate of global banking giant Credit Suisse First Boston, had ended talks that would have provided the company with a $400 million investment.

WOORI DENIES LOOKING TO CEDE CONTROL TO FOREIGNERS: South Korea's Woori Financial Group, the third largest in the sector, is not considering selling managerial rights to foreign investors, though it is pushing ahead with a plan for privatisation, its top executive said today. Hwang Young-key told reporters in Seoul that he expected the group to sell a 50 percent stake to the market due to high demand for the stock.

IN PROSPECT: The preliminary hearing in the case against Yukos to recover $1.3 billion (UKpound 710 million) in taxes dating back to 2001 will take place in Moscow tomorrow. The affair, which many observers believe is politically driven by the country's President Vladimir Putin, has threatened to send the company, Russia's biggest oil producer, to the wall and helped to push up oil prices round the world.

TRADER TALK: John de Mol, the media tycoon behind Big Brother, has picked up 760,000 shares in InvestinMedia, taking his holding to 2.2 million, or 13.6 percent. The UKpound 13.2 million-rated firm was demerged from Avesco earlier in the year and holds a stake in Complete Communications Corporation, which owns the rights to Who Wants to be a Millionaire? www.citywire.co.uk

EXPORTS SLIDE HITS INDUSTRY: Grim news on the economy continued apace today as the respected CBI survey on manufacturing showed further deterioration in Britain's industrial base.

Export orders this month tumbled to their lowest since February. In the light of pessimism in the housing market and the Bank of England's concerns about consumer confidence, economists said today's numbers made it more likely that UK interest rates were near their peak.

Overall manufacturing orders slumped sharply from August's figures.

SIEMENS SNAPS UP UKpound 32M PHOTO-SCAN: German electrical giant Siemens is buying Britain's Photo-Scan in a deal worth UKpound 31.7 million. Siemens will pay 140p cash for each share in the security systems specialist, based in Sunbury-on Thames. Photo-Scan, in a separate statement today, reported first-half net income rose 38 percent to UKpound 887,000 on revenue of UKpound 12.6 million.

AMSTRAD PROFITS BOOM TO UKpound 15.6M: Surging demand for Amstrad's TV set-top boxes and its em@iler phone-cum-internet gadget boosted pre-tax profits more than fourfold to UKpound 15.6 million in the year to end-June from UKpound 3.8 million last year. Amserve, the em@iler divison, made a UKpound 3.1 milion profit. The full-year dividend rises 2p to 5p .

CHRYSALIS SEEKS A HAPPY BOOKS ENDING: LBC and Heart radio station operator Chrysalis may sell its books arm. It is "having a look at the strategic position" of Chrysalis Books, set to record a UKpound 1.5 million loss this year. An outside specialist is to value the business, which has prompted a downgrade in City profit forecasts from UKpound 10 million to UKpound 7.1 million.

MINERVA WHITTLING DOWN ITS QUEUE OF BIDDERS: First-round bidders for property developer Minerva, 60 percent-owner of Allders department store, will be whittled down to four or five by tomorrow after the company received about a dozen offers this week below the UKpound 600 million or 370p per share hoped for. Bidders include private equity firm Blackstone and developers Hines and Tishman Speyer.

SABMILLER EARNINGS ON TRACK FOR BUMPER YEAR: SABMiller, the world's second-largest brewer, said today that earnings grew across all its businesses in the five months to August. However, it warned of weakness in Italy, where it acquired the Peroni and Nastro Azzuro brands in a controversial deal last year. Meantime, volumes in Africa and Asia stormed ahead by 9 percent, boosted by China.

'SPECTACULAR CASINO' TEAM OF PLANNERS APPOINTED: One of London's largest casino projects is moving ahead with Earls Court & Olympia and MGM Mirage Partnership appointing architects, legal and traffic consultants to work on a planned UKpound 150 million complex earmarked for the Olympia 2 exhibition centre. A planning application is expected next year for MGM Grand Olympia, described as "a spectacular destination".

HARDY BLOWN ALONG ON A FOLLOWING WIND TO UKpound 9.7M: Lloyd's insurer Hardy Underwriting said today that hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan were likely to reverse expected falls in property catastrophe rates. Hardy's profits jumped from UKpound 6.48 million to UKpound 9.27 million in the six months to June. It is paying a 25p-a-share special dividend from the UKpound 20.7 million proceeds from the sale of a stake in rival Atrium.

WILKO AND PINSENT HEAD OTTAKAR's CHRISTMAS LIST: Autobiographies by two of Britain's greatest sportsmen, Jonny Wilkinson and Matthew Pinsent, as well as by Graham Norton, the chat show host, will be filling the nation's stockings this Christmas, bookshop chain Ottakar's said today. The group reported first-half losses of UKpound 2.8 million, a shade better than last year, though the interim dividend is being lifted 20 percent to 2.4p.

UKpound preceding a numeral refers to the United Kingdom's pound sterling.

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