Pearl faces bondholder battle July 1, 2009 Bondholders in British insurer Pearl Group said last night they would not back a proposed re-listing of the group because of concerns over treatment of the bonds. Pearl, Hugh Osmond’s closed life funds investment vehicle, has said it would float on the London Stock Exchange providing the group with £510m of new capital.
Punch faces tussle with its investors July 1, 2009 HEAVILY indebted pub chain owner Punch Taverns is facing opposition from major shareholders to its plans to raise £375m in a share sale. Greenlight Capital, the US hedge fund, and QVT Financial are believed to be among those who will vote against the fund raising at the group’s AGM in protest at the potential dilution [...]
UK’S MAIN RAIL FRANCHISES July 1, 2009 ARRIVA WALES Shrewsbury – Swansea line. It also covers Cardiff, Manchester and Birmingham FIRST CAPITAL CONNECT A FirstGroup franchise, it runs from Bedford to Brighton via Luton. Also Luton to Wimbledon and Sutton. NATIONAL EXP. EAST ANGLIATrains run from London Liverpool Street to Sheffield, Chelmsford, and Peterborough. SOUTH WEST TRAINSPart of Stagecoach group, it was [...]
M&S has best performance in two years July 1, 2009 MARKS & SPENCER (M&S) said yesterday that its 125th anniversary celebrations, a late Easter and the arrival of summer had all helped drive it to the best quarterly performance in nearly two years. M&S reported a drop in UK like-for-like sales of 1.7 per cent for the first quarter, ending 27 June, compared to a [...]
Hypo to suffer heavy losses July 1, 2009 Hypo Real Estate (HRE), the German state-owned lender, is set to lose more than €2bn (£1.7bn) over the next 18 months, sources said yesterday. The specialist property lender said last week that it expected to fall to a loss of “at least hundreds of millions of euros” in the second quarter, adding that it was [...]
Q & A: EAST COAST RAIL LINE July 1, 2009 Q.WHY IS THE EAST COAST RAIL LINE STRUGGLING?A.The franchise – along with other train operators – is struggling as the downturn results in both leisure and business travellers cutting back on travel. It is also losing out on its premium passengers, as those who are still travelling stay away from first class travel. Rising fuel [...]
VIRGIN ATLANTIC CUTS ROUTES AND JOBS July 1, 2009 VIRGIN Atlantic, the airline majority-owned by Sir Richard Branson, said yesterday it will cut seven per cent of its winter services and axe up to 600 jobs due to falling passenger demand. Virgin said its daily Heathrow to Chicago service will not fly this winter and it would suspend one of two daily London to [...]
Rock cleared to write loans July 1, 2009 NORTHERN Rock has been cleared by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to keep lending, despite breaching its minimum capital requirements. The FSA had already granted the nationalised mortgage lender a waiver to write new mortgages despite its low levels of capital, permitting the bank to include tier two capital – a riskier type of cash [...]
Hiring spree gives a boost to Evolution July 1, 2009 INVESTMENT banking group Evolution said yesterday it is performing well despite the economic turmoil, with the expansion of its institutional equities business continuing apace and strong progress in its other divisions. Evolution, which poached a team of 45 staff from Dresdner Kleinwort’s securities business last month, said the new hires had been integrated successfully. It [...]
New partners at Big Four firms July 1, 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopers yesterday announced the admission of 33 new partners with effect from 1 July 2009 in addition to 21 partners recruited externally during the course of the year. Meanwhile, Big Four rival Ernst & Young announced the admission of 48 new partners across the UK and Ireland with immediate effect.