Hon Hai tipped to buy chunk of flat panel giant

DOW JONES , quoting Chinese language paper the Economic Daily News, reckons giant hardware maker Hon Hai (Foxconn) will take a 15 per cent share of LG Philips LCD.

Executives at the joint venture between Dutch firm Philips and Korean firm Lucky Goldstar (LG) have already indicated they want to flog 30 per cent of the firm off.

It's doubtful LG Philips will sell any of this 30 per cent to Samsung, but the Daily News reckons Toshiba and Matsushita would like a slice of this flat panel cake.

In other news, Philips showed a surge in profits in its second quarter but its consumer electronics unit didn't come out as the star. Its light bulb unit did OK. µ