Cameron defends Budget as 610,000 public jobs to go June 30, 2010 DAVID Cameron was forced to defend his government‘s public spending cuts yesterday when it emerged an estimated 610,000 public sector jobs will be lost. The report by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts one in eight public sector jobs will be shed by the end of this parliament. However, the report also estimates the [...]
Ex-New Star hedgie reveals figures from comeback firm June 30, 2010 ALAN Miller, the former hedge fund high-flyer who quit New Star Asset Management following a messy divorce, has revealed market-beating figures from his comeback venture. Just over a year after launching Spencer-Churchill Miller (SCM) Private, a boutique wealth manager, Miller said his two portfolios had dodged most of the downside suffered by UK equities. SCM [...]
Lloyds set to cut 650 jobs June 30, 2010 Part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group is to cut 650 jobs and stop using a network of independent agencies, prompting the closure of 265 of them and potentially the loss of hundreds more jobs. Lloyds, which is 41 per cent owned by the UK government, said the closure of an insurance site in Nottingham, central England and [...]
BSkyB to increase sports prices June 30, 2010 British?Sky Broadcasting will today reveal a hike of between 11 and 36 per cent to the wholesale and retail cost of its sports channels, according to the?Financial Times. The higher charges on companies like BT and Virgin?Media mean BSkyB will be charging almost as much as when Ofcom, the regulator, intervened to force it to [...]
Polyus and KazakhGold eye LSE June 30, 2010 Russian miner Polyus will list on the London Stock Exchange and probably enter the FTSE 100 following its merger with KazakhGold. The fused entity will have a market value of £6.7bn and is expected to be chaired by Mikhail Prokhorov, Polyus’ owner. Polyus said that it would delist its shares in Moscow to seek a [...]
BP execs face angry locals June 30, 2010 BP’S TOP executives are preparing to face hundreds of angry New Orleans residents in a “town hall” style meeting after a presidential commission investigating the Gulf of Mexico spill has called for a hearing. The commission, which is headed by former Environment Protection Agency (EPA) administrator William Reilly, has called for the hearings to start [...]
London is in danger of losing its status as top business base June 30, 2010 LONDON is in danger of losing its standing as the premier place to do business, according to an influential survey published today. While four fifths of chief executives continue to rate the capital as a good or very good place to do business, this has fallen by six per cent in the past six months, [...]
US Congress calls for unlimited damages for oil firm accidents June 30, 2010 BP could face unlimited liability for the Gulf of Mexico spill if a Senate bill becomes law. US Congress yesterday vowed to get tough on offshore drilling practices, calling for both unlimited liability for oil firms that cause spills and a refusal to give offshore leases to companies with poor track records. At the Senate’s [...]
Browne joins government as super-boss June 30, 2010 FORMER BP chief executive Lord Browne was confirmed as the coalition government’s “super-director” yesterday in a controversial move that puts him at the heart of Whitehall. The peer accepted the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives’ invitation to take the unpaid post of “lead non-executive director” in the Cabinet Office. He will be tasked with injecting private [...]
AstraZeneca is top riser on FTSE 100 after a patent win June 30, 2010 PHARMACEUTICAL giant AstraZeneca has won a landmark patent dispute in the US, sending its shares up almost nine per cent on the news. US judge Joseph Farnan, who sits in the district of Delaware, ruled that the patent on AstraZeneca’s cholesterol drug Crestor was “valid and enforceable”. The conclusion of the three-year court battle now [...]