Technical and management support services consultancy AECOM Technology Corporation has strengthened its global footprint with an agreement to acquire Davis Langdon, a UK-based cost and project management consultancy firm, in a transaction valued at US$324 million.

With 2,800 employees, Davis Langdon serves clients around the world, with a strong presence in Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Europe, the Middle East and the United States.

Russia has signed a deal to provide South African nuclear power stations with uranium until at least 2017.

The contract, signed in Moscow following talks between Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev and South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma, comes into effect next year.

The deal involves South Africa’s state-owned power utility Eskom and Tenex, a unit of Russia’s nuclear company Rosatom. Tenex will provide South Africa’s only nuclear plant, Koeberg, which is operated by Eskom, with uranium supplies for 10 years.

Reliance Industries, India’s biggest company by market value, agreed to buy its third shale gas asset in the US this year, acquiring a 60 percent stake in acreages from Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. and its partner.

Reliance will pay $392 million for the stake in the Marcellus shale gas areas of central and north-east Pennsylvania. The Mumbai-based company will pay $340 million in cash and cover part of Carrizo’s drilling costs over two years.

UK company Inmarsat has ordered a fleet of three advanced satellites from Boeing for about £629 million, in order to deliver faster broadband service to customers by the end of 2014.

The major upgrade to Ka-Band satellites will enable London-based Inmarsat to offer broadband to commercial and government clients at speeds up to 20 times faster and at less cost than its ageing L-Band fleet, which operates at the opposite end of the frequency spectrum.

Toyota is investing considerable resources in developing its South African supply chain. VP of purchasing and engineering Nigel Ward explains to Gay Sutton the value of collaborative supplier relations and Toyota’s philosophy of respect for people and mutual trust.

Sales of new automobiles in the United States rose to their highest level of the year in July, as improved access to credit and leasing allowed motorists to replace their ageing cars and rental operators and fleet owners to upgrade their fleets.

Summer promotions, which usually begin in August but were pulled ahead this year, also had an effect, tempting buyers even though the price of the automobile was no cheaper than in previous months.

Drax, the UK’s biggest power station, has said that government reforms of subsidies for renewable energy have put the company’s planned biomass expansion in jeopardy.

According to a report in the Financial Times, the UK government’s new subsidy rules have made it hard for the company to make the case to shareholders for its planned £2 billion biomass investment.

Kinross Gold Corporation, Canada’s third largest gold producer, has agreed to buy the remaining 91 percent of shares of Red Back Mining Inc. that it does not already own, to expand into Africa.

Red Back, based in Vancouver, operates the Tasiast mine in Mauritania and the Chirano mine in Ghana, and has exploration projects in both countries. Kinross has mines and projects in Canada, the United States, Brazil, China and Russia.

Xstrata, the world’s largest exporter of coal used for power, said its first half profit more than tripled on the back of a jump in metal prices from a year earlier.

The Zug, Switzerland-based company said that net income rose to $2.3 billion (approximately €1.7 billion) from $690 million a year earlier, beating analysts’ estimates. Sales rose by 43 per cent to $13.7 billion (approx. €10.3 billion).

10. Kia: reliability score 81.0 per cent

Kia Motors is South Korea's second largest automobile manufacturer, having sold over 1.6 million cars in 2009.

Founded in June 1944 and headquartered in Seoul, the company is 38.67 per cent owned by the Hyundai Kia Automotive Group. North American and European arms are operated by Kia Motors America and Kia Motors Europe respectively.

For the first time, Kia posted KRW10 trillion in revenue for the first half of this fiscal year.