CARACAS: Venezuela will compensate companies in the telecommunications, oil and power industries that may be subject to the nationalization plan of President Hugo Chбvez, who was sworn in to another term Wednesday, the head of the National Assembly Finance Committee said Wednesday.

“Confiscation, expropriation are banned words in our dictionary,” Ricardo Sanguino, the committee chairman and a deputy who is a member of the Chбvez coalition, said by telephone. “We will be tough but fair negotiators. There are legal mechanisms in the constitution that give support to our plan.”

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan finance minister, Rodrigo Cabezas, said Caracas was studying how it would go about nationalizing major utilities.

The Venezuelan stock market rebounded this week from its biggest decline. Flashbacks of past nationalizations during another turbulent era in places like Cuba and Chile helped drive down the main index on the Caracas exchange almost 19 percent Tuesday.

The Caracas index rose 5.5 percent, while U.S. shares of Nacional Telйfonos de Venezuela, which Chбvez planned to nationalize, gained 19 percent after declining 30 percent in two days.

The nationalization plan involves taking control of foreign oil ventures in the Orinoco Belt of Venezuela by buying out their stakes, not through expropriation, Sanguino said. Another option would be paying companies for the value of their stakes after deducting taxes or unpaid licensing rights, he said.

Companies with investments in the basin include U.S. companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips as well as BP of Britain, Total of France and Statoil of Norway.

The plan is the biggest step by Chбvez toward reversing the legacy of previous governments that raised $5 billion from the sale of companies and opened Venezuelan markets to foreign investors. Chбvez said last month that industries he deemed strategic to national interests, like electricity and communications, would be returned to state control.

Chбvez pledged to spend his second, six-year term in office implementing socialism.

“Building Venezuela’s way to socialism, that’s the only way to redemption,” Chбvez told lawmakers gathered for his inauguration at the National Assembly.

Under the plan, the government will compensate shareholders of companies like Nacional Telйfonos, for reversing its sale to foreign investors several years ago, Sanguino said.

The president’s plan is exclusively about reversing such sales, not taking over companies owned by private investors like the biggest Venezuelan electricity distributor, Electricidad de Caracas, Sanguino said.

“Venezuela isn’t a newcomer in this nationalization business,” Sanguino said, referring to the process of nationalization spearheaded by the then-President Carlos Andrйs Perez in the 1970s. “We know how to implement. It will be good for our country.”

Telйfonos de Mйxico, which had an agreement to buy Cantv, said it was resigned to the probability of having to cancel the deal.

Sanguino said that he expected Chбvez to introduce legislation requesting extraordinary powers to make law by way of executive order next week. Passage of the legislation, which would grant the president authority to nationalize utilities and oil ventures with foreign companies and scrap the autonomy of the central bank, would not take more than two weeks, Sanguino said.

Tornadoes have killed at least 18 people and injured more than 50 in the US state of Alabama, officials said tonight.

The fatalities included 15 people at a high school where students were trapped under a collapsed roof.

The Alabama emergency management agency said that the number could very well increase as the search effort continues through the night.

Martha Rodriquez, a 15-year-old student, said she had left the school about five minutes before the storm hit. When she returned, a hall at the school had collapsed, she said.

Two people have also died in the town of Enterprise, and one in rural Millers Ferry, where a separate apparent twister destroyed mobile homes.

The same weather system has been blamed for a tornado that killed a seven-year-old girl in Missouri. George Bush, who visited New Orleans yesterday, was briefed on the tornadoes by senior staff and called Alabama governor Bob Riley and Missouri governor Matt Blunt, White House spokeswoman Dana Perrino said.

EADS Reports $1.01 Billion Loss in 4Q Weaker Dollar, Delays at Airbus Unit Drag Down EADS ‘06 Profits; Company Lost $1.01B in 4Q By MATT MOORE The Associated Press

MUNICH, Germany - A weaker dollar and major delays at its Airbus unit dragged annual profit down at EADS NV, the company said Friday, as it posted a multimillion euro fourth quarter loss and warned that Airbus would “display another substantial loss in 2007.”

The Amsterdam-based company lost euro768 million ($1.01 billion) in the fourth quarter compared with a profit of euro405 million a year earlier. Sales, however, were up 11 percent to euro11.96 billion ($15.73 billion) compared with euro10.76 billion in 2005.

The European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. said the effects of a series of management and financial crises, including a two-year delay to Airbus’ double-decker A380 superjumbo that has wiped more than euro5 billion ($6.58 billion) off profit forecasts, and charges at the plane maker’s A350 XWB program hurt fourth-quarter profits.

Adding to that were higher research and development costs, the company said.

Officially launched in December, the euro11.6 billion ($15.26 billion) A350XWB program promises better fuel-efficiency and greater use of composites than the earlier version of the plane, but with later availability.

So far, Finland’s Finnair has agreed to order nine of the planes and Airbus is in talks with other airlines about converting 93 outstanding A350 orders for the widebody model.

But the new Airbus jet is five years behind its rival, Boeing Co.’s 787 “Dreamliner,” which has already notched up 464 firm orders as the U.S. company prepares to begin building the plane in the second quarter, with the first flight scheduled for August.

Airbus posted a fourth-quarter operating loss of euro1.72 billion ($2.26 billion) compared with a euro453 million operating profit in the same period a year ago. During the fourth quarter EADS bought BAE Systems PLC’s 20 percent stake in Airbus for euro2.75 billion ($3.62 billion).

Sales rose 8 percent to euro6.6 billion ($8.68 billion) compared with euro6.14 billion in 2005.

For the year, Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, had an operating loss of euro572 million ($752.29 million) compared with a profit of euro2.3 billion in 2005. Sales rose 14 percent to euro25.2 billion ($33.14 billion) compared with euro22.2 billion in 2005.

Overall, EADS earned euro99 million ($130.2 million) in 2006 compared with euro1.67 billion in 2005 as sales rose 15.4 percent to euro39.4 billion ($51.82 billion) from euro34.2 billion a year earlier. Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a 2006 net profit of euro39 million ($51.29 million).

Co-chief executives Tom Enders and Louis Gallois said that the results were hampered by Airbus, but predicted the recently announced Power8 restructuring plan, would help return the unit to profitability.

“It will take some time but Power8 will make Airbus substantially more integrated and efficient,” the pair said in a statement. “For 2007, our priorities are to drive operational improvements, restore the group’s credibility and build a leaner and more dynamic EADS.”

Airbus plans to cut 10,000 jobs and spin off or close six of its European manufacturing plants, under the auspices of the Power8 plan, which was unveiled Feb. 28.

Three sites making wing and fuselage parts in Britain, France and Germany are earmarked for sale to new investment partners as Airbus follows in Boeing’s footsteps by seeking risk-sharing partners to finance more of its programs.

Airbus has said potential investment partners include Britain’s GKN PLC, Italy’s Finmeccanica SpA and U.S.-based Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. a former Boeing division that was renamed after its sale to investment firm Onex and remains a major Boeing supplier.

Looking ahead this year, the company said it expects a single-digit increase in revenue and said that Airbus revenues would likely remain stable based on an expected 440 to 450 deliveries this year.

Shares of EADS closed Thursday up nearly 1 percent to euro23.59 ($31.03) in Paris trading.

On the Net:

http://www.eads.com

http://www.airbus.com