International Business / The Pacific

Daewoo May Buy Thomson Unit: Soon-Hoon Bae, chairman and chief executive of South Korea’s Daewoo Electronics, said his company will make a formal bid for Thomson’s electronics division as soon as Thomson’s scheduled privatization begins. But Bae, in France to open a TV parts factory in Lorraine, added that any offer would depend on whether the French government, which owns Puteaux-based Thomson, would allow the struggling Thomson Multimedia division to be sold to a foreign entity. The government is seen as wanting to keep the company French in order to ensure that jobs and industry do not leave the country, which has an unemployment rate of 11.9%.