News
Stormy day for equities as FTSE falls by the most in over a year
VOLATILE markets plummeted yesterday, reversing some of the extraordinary, record-breaking gains that have been printed during May.
FOOTBALL giant Manchester United announced late last night that it has taken measures to cut its considerable interest payments by refinancing over £200m of debt.
THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund’s executive directors threw their weight behind Christine Lagarde yesterday, as the organisation’s chief faced questions in court over a payout to a businessman during her time as French finance minister.
EUROPE’S biggest firms, starting with banks, will have to publish detailed breakdowns of tax payments as soon as this summer, European commissioner Michel Barnier indicated yesterday.
QUESTIONS have been raised over the security services’ prior knowledge of two men shot and arrested in Woolwich after the brutal murder of a soldier.
EUROPEAN regulators yesterday dropped a bid to make pension funds subject to the same capital rules as banks and insurers, which could have cost European businesses billions of pounds to make their pension schemes more financially secure.
EUROPE’S planned financial transactions tax (FTT) should go ahead even though it will hit businesses’ borrowing costs because there is no credit crunch, the European Commission (EC) claimed in documents leaked yesterday.
TOP INVESTMENT bank Goldman Sachs has joined the industry’s drive to clean up behaviour and show a more considerate, less greedy side to the sector with a new business standards report published yesterday.
TESCO chief executive Philip Clarke and finance director Laurie McIlwee both missed out on bonuses last year after the firm failed to meet its profit targets.
FIRSTGROUP’S discounted rights issue will cost the firm around £30m in advisers’ fees and other expenses, the transport company said in its prospectus yesterday.
EMBRACING colour has helped GAP, which also owns Old Navy and Banana Republic, boost its first quarter profit 43 per cent as its turnaround gathers momentum.
MINING and commodities trading giant Glencore Xstrata yesterday announced the launch of a huge $5bn (£3.3bn) bond, its debut as a merged company.
HOLDING interest rates at rock bottom is building risks in the economy as investors, households and firms may forget that rates can rise, Bank of England director Andy Haldane warned yesterday.
EMBATTLED mining group ENRC yesterday revealed two possible breaches of confidential data yesterday.
It said a laptop had been stolen during a domestic burglary, and an unnamed third party had accessed the firm’s electronic systems.
BANK and investment group Investec saw profits recover strongly in the last year, the lender announced yesterday, as it shook off much of the legacy of the financial crisis.
LLOYDS raised less than it hoped for in the sale of a 15 per cent stake in wealth management business St James’s Place yesterday.
THE CITY’S new financial watchdog has fined a wealth management unit of JP Morgan Chase £3.08m for being unable to show it was giving clients the right advice.
PERONI maker SABMiller has put its UK success down to more drinkers searching for a premium pint as it revealed that sales had risen despite a declining market.
IAN Hannam’s involvement in advising on FirstGroup’s £600m rights issue continues to interest investment banking watchers.
SALES at pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers were broadly flat in the first half, hit by poor weather as the company pressed ahead with a turnaround plan, the firm said yesterday.
PEARSON has announced a shakeup of its management in a restructuring operation that will see one of its longest-serving executives depart.
THE OWNER of the Daily Mail newspaper posted a rise in underlying revenues yesterday as the phenomenal success of the MailOnline website made up for declines in the company’s print newspaper business.
FLYBE is to withdraw from Gatwick next year after selling its 25 take-off and landing slots to EasyJet for £20m.
HALFORDS yesterday warned that profits would be held back over the next two years as the bicycle-to-car parts retailer unveiled a three-year turnaround plan to reach £1bn sales by 2016.
MOTHERCARE chief executive Simon Calver yesterday said the baby products retailer was on track with the turnaround of its UK business after narrowing its losses last year.
SINCE he joined Halfords in October last year, new boss Matt Davies has had anything but an easy ride.
Ocado feels it’s time to spread its wings
OCADO’S tie-up with supermarket chain Morrisons last week has thrust the online grocer’s co-founder and chief executive Tim Steiner very firmly into the eye of a storm.
RECOVERING fortunes for North Sea oil and gas helped to drive UK GDP into positive figures between January and March this year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed yesterday.
NET MIGRATION to the UK withered in the year to September 2012, falling a massive 37 per cent against the year up to September 2011.
THE NUMBER of young people not in education, employment or training (Neets) fell on the year to March 2013, down 101,000 to just over one million.
THE EUROZONE is still stuck in recession and shows no signs of recovery, according to influential survey data published yesterday.
US MANUFACTURING slowed for a second straight month in May as weak overseas demand and government belt-tightening at home led to the sector’s most sluggish rate of growth since October, a survey showed yesterday.
BOB BELL
ROYAL BANK OF CANADA
SAMSUNG’S latest iPhone rival, the Galaxy S4, has shipped 10m handsets in its first month on sale, which the Korean firm said was the fastest selling launch in its history.
A CLOUD computing company founded by a star of TV show Dragon’s Den will become the latest technology firm to tap London’s markets for funding this morning.
SQUARE, the mobile payments firm run by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, has made its first steps outside of North America, launching in Japan.
ENTERTAINMENT ONE, the company behind the Twilight films and the Peppa Pig cartoon series, is set for a move to the premium listing of the London Stock exchange, as its market value races towards inclusion on the FTSE 250 index.
LENOVO’S bold acquisitions in its flagship PC business, a foray into mobile gadgets, and a relatively light debt load are setting it apart from PC rivals as industry shipments take their steepest fall in decades.
Young & Co yesterday said it swung to an annual profit of £22.3m, heralding events like the Olympics and the Queen’s Jubilee for bringing customers to its pubs across London and the south east of England.
Software company Aveva saw a 12 per cent rise in annual sales primarily driven by its IT management software, Enterprise Solutions. Revenues for the division surged 31 per cent to £30.7m, bringing it into the black for the first time.
Irish drugmaker Elan last night rejected Royalty Pharma’s increased $6.4bn (£4.2bn) takeover bid, shortly after the US firm cut the acceptance bar for its latest offer to 50 per cent plus one share.
WATER company United Utilities was one of the few stocks to rise on the FTSE 100 yesterday, after it unveiled an eight per cent rise in pre-tax profits and a five per cent rise in revenue for the year.
DEFENCE technology company Qinetiq could sell its US services division after a £256m writedown prompted it to launch a strategic review of the business.
SPECIALIST healthcare company BTG yesterday announced that it has agreed to acquire two new businesses for a total of $380m (£250m), as part of its strategy to tap into the interventional medicine market.
BRITISH utility and waste management company Pennon yesterday announced a 1.1 per cent fall in pre-tax profits, due to a decline in its recycling arm Viridor.
FTSE 100-listed miner Vedanta Resources yesterday announced that it had priced two bonds amounting to $1.7bn (£1.1bn), in order to refinance existing debt.
Iron ore miner Afferro Mining yesterday announced that it had lost $0.8m (£0.5m) in the first quarter of 2013, compared to a $1.9m loss in the first quarter of the previous year.
Oil and gas explorer Salamander Energy yesterday revealed that production is ahead of budget and is currently around 180,000 barrels of oil per day.
Rouse
The intellectual property firm has appointed Annie Lachmansingh as an executive and partner. Lachmansingh, a dispute resolution specialist, has been working at the company for 13 years. Prior to joining, she was at Ford of Europe.
