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 [...]
CITY VIEWS: DID TONY HAYWARD MAKE THE RIGHT MOVE? July 27, 2010 CHRIS HOPKINS | LLOYD’S OF LONDON “From a PR perspective, it was a smart move, especially putting an American at the top of running the show. Tony Hayward made one too many gaffes and shot himself in the foot. As a company you always want your head to be more of a political figure.” RAFIQUE [...]
Huhne backs new nuclear power plants July 27, 2010 CHRIS Huhne, the energy secretary, threw his weight behind new nuclear energy yesterday, reversing years of Liberal Democrat opposition to nuclear power. Huhne said a nuclear building programme would be “on track by 2018”, suggesting the government will move faster than originally thought. The Institute of Directors welcomed the announcement, but called on the government [...]
Miliband the elder is Labour’s best chance July 27, 2010 POLITICAL EDITOR THERE are few things duller than a Labour leadership contest. The five rivals have been travelling the length and breadth of the country, delivering exactly the same stump speech at a never-ending series of hustings. It’s a running joke among the contenders that they know each other’s scripts off by heart, not just [...]
Lords to quiz Big Four auditors over their role in banking crisis July 27, 2010 THE HOUSE of Lords has launched a wide-ranging review into the role of the Big Four accountants in the financial crisis. The economics affairs committee will probe auditors PwC, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Deloitte over whether they could have done more to alert investors to the risks in the banking system. The review piles [...]
UK owes £1bn extra on PFIs July 27, 2010 PUBLIC spending came under fresh scrutiny yesterday, after new figures suggested taxpayers will shell out up to £1bn extra over the next 30 years to pay for PFI projects, while the state struggles to reverse a decline in productivity. The running costs of Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) agreed during the credit crisis will be between [...]
Cable immigration blunder overshadows PM’s India trip July 27, 2010 THE Prime Minister’s visit to India got off to a shaky start last night, after Vince Cable made off-message comments about the coalition’s immigration policy, which has become a hot-button issue in the emerging superpower. Cable, the business secretary, said the government was not willing to negotiate on plans for an immigration cap, but admitted [...]
Labour spent £500m on PR and advertising despite slump July 27, 2010 THE Labour government spent a staggering £500m on advertising campaigns and PR in 2009-10, even as the public finances were spiralling out of control. The Central Office of Information?– which is responsible for government marketing and communications – made the admission in its annual accounts yesterday. Francis Maude, minister for the cabinet office, seized on [...]
AirFrance is back in profit July 27, 2010 AIRFRANCE-KLM returned to quarterly profit yesterday, thanks to a €1.34bn (£1.1bn) gain from its stake in newly-listed travel booking firm Amadeus. Europe’s biggest airline reported a net profit for the three months to the end of June of €736m, compared to a loss of €426m in the same period a year ago. Operating profit remained [...]