World Briefing

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How Sweet It Is
Tate & Lyle is on a sugar rush. After just four years in stores, the British firm's no-calorie sweetener sucralose (brand name Splenda) accounts for 43% of U.S. retail sugar-substitute sales (excluding Wal-Mart). That beats Equal and Sweet'n Low, according to market researcher Information Resources. In a deal with Tate, McNeil Nutritionals, a Johnson & Johnson division, is rolling out a sugar-Splenda blend for baking in August. Splenda, already used in thousands of manufactured foods (one appeal: it withstands heat better than alternatives do), is also going into new mid-calorie sodas from Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Earlier this year, Splenda was okayed for sale in the European Union. Tate is spending $30 million to expand its sole Splenda plant, in Alabama. The potential catch: many Splenda users are converting from real sugar — Tate's main business. Says Charlie Mills, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in London: "People are forgetting how much of Tate's other business can be threatened by this."

Banking on Singapore
It's tough to be a foreign bank in Singapore. To protect the local banking industry, the Southeast Asian city-state limits the number of automated-teller machines, or ATMs, that foreign banks can operate and restricts their access to local ATM networks. Citibank has found a way around this: become Singaporean. The bank, which currently has four branches in the country, plans to spend about $880 million by year-end to incorporate as Citibank Singapore Ltd. Citibank wants "to grow its international business and to be embedded in the local community," says Sophia Tong, a spokeswoman for Citibank in Singapore. Citibank has already localized in Malaysia and Australia and plans to do so in Hong Kong. But its status as the first foreign bank to go local in Singapore gives it a competitive edge: it can negotiate with local banks for ATM access as early as mid-2006, 18 months earlier than other foreign banks.