LVMH profit shows luxury is back July 27, 2010 French luxury goods behemoth LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton reported a 53 per cent jump in first half net profit yesterday, suggesting a strong return of high-end consumption. The world’s largest luxury goods company posted net profit for the first six months of €1.05bn (£875m), up from €687m a year ago as all divisions posted [...]
CBRE sees concrete growth July 27, 2010 CB Richard Ellis, one of the world’s largest commercial real estate service companies, posted a second-quarter net profit yesterday and its strongest revenue growth since 2007. The company said its net income was $54.8m (£35.2m), compared with a net loss of $6m a year ago after a major restructuring. Revenue for the Los Angeles-based company [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 27, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES SOROS SET TO BUY STAKE IN BOMBAY EXCHANGE George Soros, the billionaire investor, is in final talks to buy Dubai Holding’s 4 per cent stake in the Bombay Stock Exchange, as foreign investor interest in India’s fast-growing financial markets rises, people close to the matter said. Soros Fund Management is planning to pay [...]
Tomkins gets flak for £3bn takeover deal July 27, 2010 INDUSTRIAL components manufacturer Tomkins faced another headache from one of its leading shareholders yesterday after recommending a £2.9bn takeover offer from a Canadian consortium. Tomkins chairman David Newlands urged investors to accept the 325p per share bid from private equity player Onex and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, saying it reflected “both the value [...]
Manchester United may face probe into its season tickets July 27, 2010 MANCHESTER United could face an anti-competition appeal over the way it sells season tickets, City A.M. has learned. A top City law firm is looking into the way the Old Trafford club bundles European and cup games with its season tickets, forcing fans to shell out more if the team progresses. A source close to [...]
Hayward: I was vilified over spill July 27, 2010 OUTGOING BP boss Tony Hayward yesterday claimed he was “demonised and vilified” over the firm’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis. But the embattled leader, who is set to hand over the chief executive role in October to BP’s managing director Bob Dudley, accepted the company could not move forward with him at the helm. [...]
BP reports a record $17bn quarterly loss July 27, 2010 BP IS to launch a $30bn (£19bn) asset sale in a bid to offset some of the Gulf of Mexico spill costs after the group reported record quarterly losses of $17bn for the last three months, one of the worst in corporate history. The asset sale, mainly in BP’s upstream business is likely to take [...]
Greenpeace launches a London protest as closes almost 50 petrol stations July 27, 2010 GREENPEACE launched an attack on BP yesterday after shutting down 46 out of the group’s 50 petrol stations in central London. The environmental group said that it had sent more than 50 activists to shut off the power at petrol stations through out the capital in the early hours of yesterday morning to coincide with [...]
BP July 27, 2010 LOOK beneath the oil spill, and BP’s underlying performance in the second quarter was actually rather strong. Perhaps management redoubled their efforts to try and get investors to cut them some slack. In that respect, they failed: the shares closed virtually flat yesterday. Stripping out $21.9bn worth of post-tax charges related to the spill, the [...]
OTHER TOP BOSSES FORCED TO RESIGN July 27, 2010 SIR PHILIP WATTS Sir Philip Watts, the former chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, was forced to quit after he overstated the group’s oil reserves by 20 per cent, knocking more than £15bn off Shell’s market value. Watts was forced to quit in 2004. SIR FRED GOODWIN Dubbed the “world’s worst banker”, former Royal Bank [...]