Word: belgian
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Perhaps too late, La Generale is putting up a defense. The company issued $1.5 billion in new stock, aiming to dilute the value of De Benedetti's shares. A Brussels commercial court ruled the stock issue invalid, but the Belgian banking commission gave approval for the defense tactic, thus setting the stage for a legal and regulatory battle. Even Belgium's Finance Minister, Mark Eyskens, intervened. "We are not against Europeanization," he reportedly said. "You can do it, but you can't do it sneakily, breaking in like a thief in the night." In a hurriedly called meeting, Eyskens persuaded...
...bedrock. The company was founded by King William I of the Netherlands in 1822, eight years before Belgium became an independent country. As the country's first central bank, La Generale printed its own paper currency until 1850. By the early 1900s, it was financing copper mining in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) and the building of China's Peking- Hankow railway. With its headquarters in a stately turn-of-the-century building situated between the royal palace and the Belgian Parliament, La Generale today employs nearly 100,000 workers and holds interests in 1,261 firms, including the country...
When Yozo Matsuoka was a manager at Honda's European operations in Brussels during the early 1980s, one of his neighbors was a Belgian pensioner. "This man lived a life beyond our imaging," recalls Matsuoka. "He owned his house, drove a nice car and rented a cottage in Spain for five months a year. I knew that they paid lots of taxes for the social-welfare system in Belgium, but I realized with envy the security they got in return...
Matsuoka, 46, is back in Japan now and, like most Japanese, is busy saving to ensure that in retirement he will enjoy something like the comfort his Belgian friend had. Every month 10% of Matsuoka's after-tax paycheck is automatically deducted and put into a company savings program. But Matsuoka's wife, who, like most Japanese wives, handles the family finances, is unsatisfied. She salts away even more cash from Matsuoka's twice-yearly bonuses...
...took the position that if Germanywas going to win the war--as it appeared theywould in 1941--what could cultural life be like?"Professor Hertz said. "The line he took was toestablish pockets of Belgian cultural autonomyunder German hegemonic domination...