Capital & Regional back in black August 11, 2010 UK property fund manager Capital & Regional swung to a first-half profit of £18m yesterday, after a loss of £131m a year ago, helped by higher property values and disposal of assets. The owner of leisure centres and shopping malls said it sold ten properties for £378m, with its own share accounting for £80m. However, [...]
DIY job for Berkeley chairman August 11, 2010 The boss of building group Berkeley took DIY to the extreme last year by calling in his own firm to carry out £1.32m worth of repair work on his luxury home. Tony Pidgley took advantage of the firm’s “own build scheme”, where employees can get good rates on construction work, according to the firm’s annual [...]
Grainger set to gain from slump August 11, 2010 Britain’s biggest residential landlord Grainger said yesterday it plans to cash in on the wilting housing market by buying up discount real estate. The firm, which has around £2.8bn of assets under management, bought £154.8m of properties in the past ten months, with a further £67.6m of buys in the pipeline. It sold 593 vacant [...]
GUARDIAN DRAGS ITS HEELS OVER RENEWING HAY SPONSORSHIP DEAL August 11, 2010 WHAT with an enthusiastic push into online investment, a string of ill-advised private equity deals and a move to swanky new offices at Kings Cross, it appears more traditional stalwarts of the Guardian’s extra-curricular programme could be coming under threat. A little bird tells The Capitalist that the newspaper’s long-standing sponsorship of the Hay literary [...]
China’s industrial activity is still slowing August 11, 2010 CHINESE industrial production growth slowed for the second consecutive month in July, fueling fears that its economy was losing steam. Output rose by 13.4 per cent year-on-year in July. This was slightly below the 13.7 registered in June and significantly down on the 16.5 per cent reading in May. The cooling off in the industrial [...]
AIG hit with a $1.9bn loss on Fortress August 11, 2010 AMERICAN International Group (AIG) said yesterday it will sell most of its consumer finance unit to Fortress Investment Group and take a $1.9bn (£1.2bn) pre-tax loss due to the sale. AIG, majority owned by the US government, is selling 80 per cent of American General Finance to Fortress managed funds and affiliates as it restructures [...]
Shire sells off Attention Deficit Disorder drug to Noven as reiterates profit view August 11, 2010 SPECIALITY biopharmaceutical company Shire yesterday announced the sale of its brain stimulant medicine Daytrana to Noven Pharmaceuticals, granting Noven global marketing rights for the medicine, effective from 1 October 2010. Shire also maintained its earnings outlook for the full-year 2010. The book value of the assets to be disposed is approximately $95m (£60m) or a [...]
CVC to buy 15pc Abertis stake from ACS for €1.7bn August 11, 2010 ACS has agreed to sell a €1.7bn (£1.4bn) stake in toll road operator Abertis to private equity fund CVC Capital Partners, freeing up the Spanish builder to cut debt and pursue energy investments. ACS, Spain’s largest builder by market value, and British private equity firm CVC said yesterday they will form joint ventures to manage [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 11, 2010 Coutts The private bank has appointed Jeff Stubberfield as a commercial banker in its media banking team, looking after clients in the music, TV and entertainment business. Stubberfield has over 15 years of experience in financial services and joins from Barclays, where he spent eight years, latterly as a relationship director managing a portfolio of [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS August 11, 2010 ANGLO AMERICAN Morgan Stanley downgrades Anglo American to “equalweight” from “overweight” and lowers its price target to 3,208p. Believes all the positives have been priced into the shares, which are trading at at a 10 to 15 per cent premium to the sector. Believes that investors should switch into Xstrata which it rates as “overweight”. [...]