General Motors may now close its Saab operations after a consortium led by SwedenÔÇÖs Koenigsegg Group walked away from the sale yesterday.  The future of the Swedish automaker will be decided at a GM board meeting on December 1, where the company will vote to either keep Saab, as it did with Opel earlier this month, or wind it down.  Closing Saab instead of selling would help Detroit-based GM to achieve its goal of trimming its US brands to four from eight in an effort to return to profit following its bankruptcy earlier this year.

US automotive firm General Motors may now close its Saab operations after a consortium led by SwedenÔÇÖs Koenigsegg Group walked away from the sale yesterday.

Husky Energy Inc. has announced the discovery of additional oil resources at its White Rose oil field, offshore eastern Canada.  A well drilled in the Hibernia Formation prospect encountered a 55-meter column of high-quality oil-bearing rock estimated to hold between 30 million to 85 million barrels of light crude in place, the company said in a statement.  Calgary-based Husky operates the White Rose field, which was discovered in the 1980s, and owns a 72.5 percent stake, with Suncor Energy Inc., also based in Calgary, owning the remaining 27.5 percent.

The Italian energy giant Eni has agreed to buy Heritage OilÔÇÖs Ugandan interests for up to ┬ú903 million, it has been revealed.

US chocolate maker Hershey is considering making an offer of $17 billion for UK confectionery firm Cadbury, according to reports.  It is believed that Hershey has lined up funding from Bank of America and JP Morgan in order to make a solo approach to rival the US food giant Kraft.  Reports last week indicated that Hershey was planning to team up with Italian chocolate maker Ferrero to make an offer for Cadbury, but according to the Wall Street Journal, the Pennsylvania-based firm will now pursue its bid alone.

The German rail operator Deutsche Bahn has signed a Ôé¼17 billion contract to build rail and underground lines in Qatar and Bahrain.

Canadian firm Nortel Networks is today holding an auction in New York for its optical networking and carrier ethernet business, Metro Ethernet Networks. Nortel, which was North AmericaÔÇÖs largest telecoms equipment maker, entered bankruptcy protection in January, before announcing in June that it no longer planned to continue operations and would sell off all of its business units. The Toronto, Ontario-based company has been selling off various operations since then, and has raised more than $2 billion to date. Assets have already been sold to Japanese electronics manuf

Brazil has signed two agreements to invest $6 billion in biofuel exploration in Mozambique, according to O Pais newspaper.

Blackstone Group is to acquire Birds Eye Foods for more than $1.3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reports. BlackstoneÔÇÖs Pinnacle Brands Corp.

State-owned energy giant Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) has announced it will spend around $9.8 billion (Ôé¼6.6 billion) on the construction of two petrochemical plants in Asia, according to a report by Bloomberg.