* Milk producers outperformBy Jungyoun ParkSEOUL, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Seoul shares slipped on Tuesday following eight consecutive sessions of gains and after a German finance minister’s warning that an upcoming summit would not produce a fix for the euro zone’s debt crisis.”Comments from the German finance minister and the fact that the market is exhausted following its latest streak of gains paved the way for profit-taking,” said Park Suk-hyun, a market analyst at KTB Securities.Germany said on Monday that a summit of EU leaders next Sunday would not produce a miracle cure for the euro zone’s sovereign debt crisis, a warning that pushed down markets in Europe and elsewhere after a rise over the past week on expectations of a breakthrough.The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) finished down 1.41 percent at 1,838.90 points.Foreign investors were sellers of a net 180.3 billion won ($158.1 million) worth of stocks, snapping a three-session buying streak. Investment managers offloaded a net 137.7 billion won, selling stocks for a fourth straight session.Shares in Samsung Life tumbled 6.7 percent after CJ Group member companies sold 4 million shares in the insurer via a block sale at 85,500 won per share, a discount to the previous day’s closing price of 90,000 won.CJ O Shopping , one of the companies that sold a stake in the insurer, surged 1.8 percent.Shares in milk producers outperformed after reports the agriculture ministry had okayed their plans to hike prices as early as this month.”Our minister said yesterday that a modest milk price hike was inevitable given the higher prices dairy farms are charging for milk supplies,” a ministry spokesman told Reuters.Shares in Maeil Dairy advanced 2.6 percent and Namyang Dairy edged down 0.5 percent.Hana Financial Group beat its peers after South Korea begun a process of ordering Lone Star to cut its stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) after a court ruling against it, clearing the path for the long-awaited sale of KEB to Hana.”These steps will surely expedite Lone Star’s KEB stake sale. It seems Hana Financial is nearly there in acquiring KEB,” said Shim Hyun-soo, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities.”Hana Financial will also have higher bargaining power as Lone Star will have to sell within a limited time frame.”Hana shares slipped 1.8 percent and KEB edged up 0.4 percent, while other banks fell by around the 4 percent range.Shares in Himart rose 4.2 percent after South Korea’s top electronics retailer said late on Monday that its third quarter net profit jumped 31.3 percent to 47 billion won.KT&G , a tobacco and ginseng firm, rose 0.8 percent and Neowiz , an online game developer, climbed 1.3 percent.Hyundai Securities fell 4 percent after the company said on Tuesday that it had decided to issue 7 million new shares worth 595 billion won.The KOSPI 200 spot index shed 1.48 percent to 239.89 points and the junior Kosdaq market slipped 0.4 percent to 483.43 points.Move on day -1.41 percent12-month high 2,231.47 27 April 201112-month low 1,644.11 26 September 2011Change on yr -10.34 percentAll-time high 2,231.47 27 April 2011All-time low 93.10 6 January 1981($1 = 1140.450 Korean Won)

“The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at continued efforts to advance planning for new Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem,” Ban’s press office said in a statement.”Recent developments in this regard have been unacceptable, particularly as efforts are ongoing to resume (Israeli-Palestinian) negotiations, and run contrary to the Quartet’s call on the parties to refrain from provocations,” it said.The Peace Now anti-settlement group said on Friday that Israel planned to build the housing units in a new urban settlement in East Jerusalem, angering Palestinians who want a halt to all such projects before they return to peace talks.The “Quartet” of Middle East peace negotiators — the United States, Russia, the European Union and United Nations — has urged Israel and the Palestinians to avoid provocative actions and urged them to resume stalled peace negotiations.The Peace Now group said the settlement plan was approved earlier this week by an Israeli municipal committee, which had given the go-ahead for construction on the site that lies on land seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.There was no immediate comment from the municipal committee on the report, but the Palestinians said they believed the news was accurate.”The Secretary-General reiterates that settlement activity in East Jerusalem and the remainder of the West Bank is contrary to international law,” the U.N. statement said, adding such activity “must cease.”The reports about a new settlement plan come as the Palestinians attempt to secure U.N. recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, along with full membership in the United Nations.The Palestinian U.N. bid has infuriated Israel, which says it is an attempt to delegitimize it. Israel’s ally the United States has said it was prepared to veto the Palestinian U.N. application, which is currently being assessed by a U.N. Security Council committee.If the Palestinian application to join the United Nations comes to a vote in the full Security Council, the United States has the power to veto it due to its status as a permanent member of the 15-nation panel.The Security Council committee is expected to report back to the full council next week about progress it has made assessing the Palestinian U.N. application.Diplomats on the committee, which includes all council members, say privately that little progress has been made in assessing the Palestinian request to join the world body.

TV Guide first reported the 80 year-old actor’s diagnosis. He said he will still play J.R. Ewing in the upcoming series while receiving treatment.”As J.R. I could get away with anything — bribery, blackmail and adultery,” Hagman said in a statement. “But I got caught by cancer. I do want everyone to know that it is a very common and treatable form of cancer. I will be receiving treatment while working on the new Dallas series. I could not think of a better place to be than working on a show I love, with people I love. Besides, as we all know, you can’t keep J.R. down!”The series will also feature fellow “Dallas” veterans Patrick Duffy, who plays Bobby Ewing and Linda Gray’s Sue Ellen Ewing.

* Macquarie to provide investment banking services to Julius Baer clientsBy Nishant Kumar and Saeed AzharHONG KONG/SINGAPORE, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Swiss private bank Julius Baer agreed to buy the $1 billion Asian private wealth portfolio of Australia’s top investment bank Macquarie Group , in a sign of consolidation in Asia’s wealth management industry.Macquarie’s retreat from private wealth management business underscores the challenges faced by smaller players and points to the impending consolidation in the fast-growing, yet fragmented industry in Asia.Macquarie, which has private wealth offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, is a small player in Asia’s wealth management market, where industry leaders UBS and Citigroup collectively manage about $400 billion.The move comes at a time when the market turmoil dampens growth and rising regulatory and staffing costs threaten the survival of smaller players in the industry.The shake-up is likely to begin in the offshore banking centres of Singapore and Hong Kong, where European boutique banks and international players have made a beeline to challenge established leaders .Under the agreement, Macquarie will provide investment banking services to Julius Baer. Macquarie will refer its clients to Baer for private banking services, the firms said in a statement.”What it’s saying is Macquarie Bank’s probably the better investment banker and Julius Baer are a better asset manager. But it’s a very, very small business for Macquarie,” a Sydney-based analyst said.”Julius Baer are a more logical owner of the private wealth management opportunity.”The Swiss bank will pay a nominal amount for Macquarie’s private wealth business, said Angela Watkins, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman for Julius Baer. She declined to disclose the amount.Macquarie employs seven bankers at its private wealth offices in Singapore and Hong Kong, Watkins said, adding “there is every intention to retain staff”.In Asia, Julius Baer has large operations in Singapore and Hong Kong that caters to both domestic and offshore clients, as well as an onshore presence in Jakarta for Indonesia’s wealthy.The firm, which obtained the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) licence in China last December, has been granted a representative office licence in Shanghai. QFII licence allows foreign investors to buy domestic Chinese stocks, or China “A” shares.It is considering starting an onshore office to target rich clients in India, part of a plan to expand in Asia’s top-two wealth markets by number of wealthy.Julius Baer calls itself a pure-play wealth manager and unlike UBS or Credit Suisse, does not have an in-house investment bank.But in Asia, investment banking is key for growth for wealth managers as more than 60 percent of the rich clients are business executives and they regularly seek corporate finance advice.Many entrepreneurs are at an age when they are ready to transfer their businesses to their Western-educated children, who were more inclined to list the companies or partially sell them.

* Chapter 9 prompted by crushing debt tied to incinerator* Move opposed by city mayor, state government* Harrisburg seeks to cut principal owed to bondholdersBy Edith Honan and Tom HalsOct 12 (Reuters) - Pennsylvania’s capital, Harrisburg, filed for a rare municipal bankruptcy on Wednesday in a desperate bid to resolve its debt crisis, but it now faces a showdown with the state over control of the city.Harrisburg becomes one of the most-high profile cities to opt for the little-used chapter of the U.S. bankruptcy code, most notably used nearly 20 years ago by Orange County, California. Alabama’s Jefferson County last month settled with its creditors to avoid what would have been the biggest-ever municipal bankruptcy.The Pennsylvania capital’s crisis has been a year in the making as the city of about 50,000 struggles to pay for critical services as well as roughly $300 million in debt that funded an incinerator project that failed to generate expected cash.Bankruptcy gives the city “bargaining power” with its creditors and with the state, which is considering a takeover, said Mark Schwartz, an attorney for the council.”They were tired of being humiliated and denigrated,” he said of the council members who voted for a bankruptcy filing on Tuesday.Orange County, California, filed the largest Chapter 9 bankruptcy in 1994 after it suffered more than $1 billion in investment losses. Vallejo, California, with 120,000 residents, filed for Chapter 9 in 2008, and Central Falls, the smallest city in Rhode Island, the smallest U.S. state, filed earlier this year.Harrisburg’s city council approved the bankruptcy filing in a 4-3 vote. It was opposed by the mayor, and many questioned whether the action, which appears likely to be challenged, was legal.The bankruptcy has the potential to stoke political passions as it will likely pit firefighters and police against municipal bond investors, who are often perceived to be wealthy retirees, said Peter Kaufman, president of Gordian Group and a financial restructuring specialist.Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has said the city would be better off if it agreed to a rescue plan under the state’s program for distressed cities, and his office stressed its opposition to the bankruptcy.Pennsylvania’s state senate will vote on a bill next week that calls for an eventual takeover of Harrisburg and the forced implementation of a fiscal rescue plan. The state house has already passed the bill.The city council has rejected rescue plans, one backed by the state and one by the city’s mayor. Those plans would have called on Harrisburg to renegotiate labor deals, cut jobs, and sell or lease its most valuable assets, including the incinerator and parking garages.The city council said those plans demanded too much of Harrisburg residents and did not ask enough of the county, bondholders and the bond insurer, Assured Guaranty.A spokesman for Mayor Linda Thompson said the council’s actions could accelerate state approval of a takeover.”(The bankruptcy) is hugely unpopular, but the council … is an independent body,” said spokesman Robert Philbin.He also said the city’s solicitor had raised questions about the legality of the vote during the meeting on Tuesday. The solicitor, Jason Hess, was not immediately available for comment.City Controller Dan Miller said on Wednesday, however, the filing was the right move for Harrisburg.”I think it’s the only real option that we had,” said Miller, adding that the previous plans rejected by city council would have benefited creditors at the expense of the city.”They wanted to sell all of our assets and make Harrisburg destitute for decades to come,” he said.Harrisburg’s bankruptcy filing wants to go where prior municipal bankruptcies have not: toward cutting the principal owed to bondholders, Kaufman said.”For perhaps the first time a municipality is talking about compromising its bondholders. That would be very big news, indeed, if it transpired,” he said.Daniel Berger, senior market strategist at Municipal Market Data, said there was very little trading in Harrisburg’s bonds on Wednesday. “Investors have written off these bonds for years as distressed credits,” he said.WAVE OF MUNICIPAL BANKRUPTCIES?About a year ago, many restructuring specialists were gearing up for a wave of municipal bankruptcies to provide much needed work as corporate bankruptcies ground to a halt.The economy was barely growing, towns and counties were burdened with increased demands for services, and revenue was declining.Financial analyst Meredith Whitney, one of the few on Wall Street who foresaw the 2008 financial crisis, said last year she expected a wave of municipal bond defaults.Chapter 9 bankruptcies remain uncommon, however. The process is very expensive, and not all states allow local governments to file for bankruptcy. Governments also have a power ailing companies do not have: the ability to tax.Despite Harrisburg’s filing, municipal bankruptcies will likely remain rare, said Richard Ciccarone, chief research officer and municipal bond specialist with McDonnell Investment Management LLC.”Bankruptcy proved to be a bad deal for Vallejo,” he said. He said it left the city with fewer critical services, such as police protection.”I don’t see governments jumping in to do it.”