BERLIN: Volkswagen AG's Audi is poised to purchase Italian motorcycle maker Ducati Motor Holding from owner Investindustrial for about 860 million ($1.1 billion) including debt, a person familiar with the matter said.

Audi has reached an agreement with Investindustrial to buy the Bologna, Italy-based maker of luxury motorbikes, with VW's supervisory board set to approve the deal on Wednesday, said the person, who declined to be identified. Audi and Investindustrial declined to comment.

The deal, minus debt, would value Ducati at about seven times last year's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. Ducati's total liabilities are less than 200 million, buyout firm Investindustrial said last month.

Volkswagen Chairman Ferdinand Piech, who turned 75 today, has long coveted the brand, publicly expressing interest in buying Ducati in April 2008 before eventually losing out to Investindustrial. The purchase will make Ducati the 11th brand in VW's portfolio, alongside super-car marques Lamborghini and Bugatti and heavy-duty truck manufacturers Scania AB and MAN SE.

"Ducati is one of the finest machines you can buy but strategically it's insignificant for Volkswagen," said Christoph Stuermer, a Frankfurt-based analyst with IHS Automotive. "Its revenue is more than Lamborghini's and Bugatti's combined, but to the automotive operations, it's a mere accessory."

BMW Competition

Ducati would complement Audi's luxury-car lineup with products such as the $28,000 Superbike 1199 Panigale S Tricolore and expand the brand's competition with Bayerische Motoren Werke, which makes BMW and Husqvarna motorcycles. Ducati, which last year sold about 42,000 motor bikes, had revenue for 2011 of 480 million.

For Volkswagen, the deal would mean an entry into the motorcycle business and gaining another asset in Italy after buying Lamborghini and Italdesign Giugiaro SpA. Piech has also expressed interest in the past in Fiat's Alfa Romeo brand.

Hero MotoCorp had also expressed interest in Ducati after Investindustrial made it known in February that it planned to sell the company.

Grozny - Geologists in Russia's volatile Chechnya region have discovered what they believe to be fossilised dinosaur eggs laid by one of the huge extinct reptiles that roamed the Earth more than 60 million years ago. 

"We've found about 40 eggs so far, the exact number has not been established," said Said-Emin D zhabrailov, a geologist at the Chechen State University. 

"There could be many more laying under the ground." 

The find was uncovered when a construction crew was blasting through a hillside to build a road near the region's border with former Soviet Georgia in the Caucasus Mountains. 

A team of geologists stumbled across the smooth, oval rock-like forms, which range from 25cm to 1m coincidentally on a recent trip to the area, said Dz habrailov. 

He said palaeontologists were needed to determine which species of dinosaur had laid them. 

Dzhabrailov said that the regional Chechen government, which is eager to shed the region's reputation for violence, is considering turning the area into a nature preserve and seeking to attract tourists. 

Federal forces fought two separatists wars between 1994-2001 in Chechnya, and an Islamist insurgency persists in the mostly Muslim region an d surrounding provinces of Russia's North Caucasus. 

However, violence has declined under the strong-arm rule of Ramzan Kadyrov, whose multi-million dollar construction projects are aimed at raising the region's profile and boosting the tourism potential of the troubled area.