Business & Finance

The 4,500 additional job cuts announced late last week by Deutsche Bank will be accomplished as much as possible through attrition to avert laying off employees, the company said. The cuts are planned in two stages over the next two years, because of slumping profits and a sluggish economy. The bank is Germany's largest. It earlier announced that 2,600 employees would be let go.

NEC, the electronics giant, will try to sell off two divisions that manufacture telecommunications equipment, so it can outsource their production, according to a report in the Financial Times. The Japanese company, one of the largest in the slumping global electronics industry, already has forecast a net loss of $1.2 billion for the fiscal year ending next March and has laid off - or announced plans to furlough - 18,000 workers over the past three years.

More than 100 extra police were being deployed around Brussels' Zaventem Airport as a precaution against union protests amid signs that Sabena would file for full bankruptcy as soon as today. Reports said its board has acknowledged that no investor is willing to take over the business and that the carrier is "repatriating" its planes so they won't be seized in foreign countries. Sabena is under a temporary court order protecting it from creditors, but giving its directors only until Thursday to come up with a bailout plan. The carrier is co-owned by the Belgian government and Swissair, which also collapsed financially last month.