Dubai firm to retain Europe units for 2011 October 18, 2010 Dubai International Capital (DIC) will not sell any European assets before the end of 2011, its chief investment officer said yesterday, as it waits for their value to rise. The private equity arm of Dubai Holding, the investment vehicle owned by the ruler of Dubai, is undergoing a debt restructuring. “It’s fair to say that [...]
StanChart and AgBank deepen JV October 18, 2010 Agricultural Bank of China (AgBank) and Asia-focused lender Standard Chartered have deepened a strategic alliance under which the two banks plan to set up a joint venture, AgBank said yesterday. Earlier this year, Standard Chartered invested $500m (£315m) as a cornerstone investor in AgBank’s initial public offering in Hong Kong. AgBank, China’s third-largest lender by [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 18, 2010 Matrix The financial services group has appointed Simon Elvidge as its new group head of compliance and assurance. Elvidge has over 20 years of experience in the sector and joins from Numis Securities, where he was head of compliance. Prior to that, he spent time working at HSBC, Société Générale and at Newedge Group, the [...]
Citigroup profit tops expectations October 18, 2010 Citigroup reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Monday as credit losses slowed and the bank set aside much less money to cover bad loans. Analysts said the results were mixed. Revenue rose slightly from a year earlier but fell from the second quarter, and the bank dipped into reserves to cover bad loans. Investors expressed [...]
Beazley move for Hardy rejected October 18, 2010 Lloyd’s of London insurer Beazley said smaller peer Hardy Underwriting had rejected a takeover approach made earlier this month but that it still hoped to clinch a deal. Dublin-based Beazley said that on 6 October it had proposed paying 300 pence per share in cash for Hardy, valuing the company at about £155m. The approach, [...]
BP in $1.8bn asset sale October 18, 2010 Russia’s TNK-BP, half-Owned by BP, said it would acquire BP’s production and pipeline assets in Vietnam and Venezuela for $1.8bn (£1bn). The company will use its own funds to finance the new acquisitions, TNK-BP said in a statement. “The acquisitions in Venezuela and Vietnam mark a milestone in TNK-BP’s strategic expansion in the global energy [...]
RBC in £1bn deal for BlueBay October 18, 2010 BlueBay Asset Management has agreed an all cash takeover by Canadian bank Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). The deal values the company at around £1bn. BlueBay shareholders will receive 485p in cash for each of their shares. Shareholders will also get the dividend of 7.5p proposed at the end of last year. BlueBay is one [...]
SABMiller trading “in line” October 18, 2010 SABMiller has announced that it has been trading in line with expectations in the first six months. Lager volumes for the six months to the end of September rose one per cent compared to the previous year at the drinks giant. Some raw material cost reductions helped to keep the company on track, it said. [...]
BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto ditch joint venture October 18, 2010 BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto scrapped their proposed $116bn (£72.6bn) iron-ore joint venture as expected, caving in to opposition from regulators, steelmakers and major investors 16 months after unveiling the plan. The collapse of the deal marks top global miner BHP’s second failed attempt to grab a piece of Rio Tinto’s superior iron ore assets [...]
ITEM: cuts won’t cause double-dip October 17, 2010 THE UK faces a slow economic recovery but fears of a double dip recession are overdone, one of the UK’s top forecasters will say today. The Ernst & Young Item Club – which uses the Treasury’s own economic model to make its predictions – also suggests that far from hurting the economy, Wednesday’s Comprehensive Spending [...]