Eka Life launches Excellink

Eka Life launches Excellink

JAKARTA: Eka Life insurance, a joint venture between Sinar Mas
Group of Indonesia and Ayala Group of the Philippines, launched
on Monday a new life insurance product that combines protection
and investment services.

CEO Willy Nusantara told a press conference that the new
product, called Excellink, offers insurance coverage for death
caused either by illness or accidents and benefits from the funds
invested in various investment products with a tenure of 18
years.

Just like savings in banks, policy holders are free to
increase or withdraw their funds anytime, he said.

He said the introduction of Excellink was expected to help
increase the company's premiums income from over Rp 150 billion
(US$ 16.67 million) as of the start of this year to Rp 400
billion as of the end of the year.

"We hope we can generate Rp 150 billion in premiums from
Excellink alone," he said.

Eka Life, whose risk-based capital reached 129 percent as of
last December -- far higher than the 75 percent required by the
government -- now operates 60 branches throughout the country and
hires about 3,000 employees. --JP

;AFP;
ANPAf..r..
CorporateBrief-Agilent-revenues
Agilent sees growing revenues
JP/14/Brief

Agilent sees growing revenues

SINGAPORE: U.S.-based tech giant Agilent Technologies said
Tuesday it expects 40 percent of its total revenues to come from
Asia by 2005, cushioning sluggish sales in the U.S. and European
markets.

The Nasdaq-listed firm is also planning to transplant more of
its manufacturing operations from the United States to the region
to lower its operating costs, chairman and chief executive Ned
Barnholt said.

"Asia is continuing to grow while other parts of the world are
flat to declining," he said, adding the company is seeing "very
good growth" in China and South Korea.

Agilent currently gets slightly more than 30 percent of its
revenues from Asia.

Barholt, who was here to mark the opening of the firm's US$92
million plant in Singapore, said revenues from the city-state had
grown 40 percent in the past two years.

Asia was the bright spot for the technology equipment maker as
sales orders in the region rose seven percent in the first
quarter to January while in the Americas it fell 22 percent and
in Europe sales were flat. --AFP

;AFP;
ANPAf..r..
CorporateBrief-Repsol-profits
Repsol doubles net profits
JP/14/Brief

Repsol doubles net profits

MADRID: Spanish oil company Repsol YPF nearly doubled net profits
last year with a one-off asset sale, the company said on Tuesday,
but operating profits fell by almost a third.

Repsol's net profit of 1.95 billion euros (US$2.09 billion)
was up by 90.4 percent on the previous year but disappointed
analysts, who had predicted a net profit of about 2.2 billion
euros after the sale of a 23-percent stake in gas group Gas
Natural for 1.09 billion euros.

Operational profits fell 32.5 percent to 3.32 billion euros,
the company said.

Repsol is the biggest Spanish oil company, with heavy exposure
to Latin America through its operations in countries such as
Brazil and Argentina -- where it extracts around half of the oil
it exports.

The company on Tuesday characterized its 2002 strategy as
"financial prudence and the handling of the Argentinian crisis".

Repsol also said it had more than halved its debt to 7.47
billion euros in December, from 16.5 billion a year earlier --
helped by the euro's increases against the dollar. --AFP