Bankers miss Pru fees but eye AIA float June 1, 2010 LONDON bankers will miss the fees bonanza promised by Prudential’s swoop on AIA, but advisers in Asia are rubbing their hands at the prospect of a listing for AIG’s Far Eastern arm. Prudential was preparing to shower £850m on a raft of investment banks led by Credit Suisse, HSBC and JPMorgan, and lawyers led by [...]
Prudential June 1, 2010 EVERYTHING about Prudential’s play for AIA happened back-to-front. Desperate to pounce on the Asian business before it floated, Prudential boss Tidjane Thiam raced in with the generous offer of $35.5bn (£25bn) – 25 times new business profits, a multiple unheard of for insurers even in China – and then had to work backwards to model [...]
PRUDENTIAL AND AIA EXPLAINED June 1, 2010 Q. WHY SHOULD PRUDENTIAL WITHDRAW NOW? A. Prudential – after suffering its first major setback with an unprecedented regulatory delay to the deal last month – was already facing growing shareholder discontent. A withdrawal today, after Prudential management meets top investors, would avoid taking the deal to a vote at a general meeting scheduled for [...]
Ryanair pays out €500m as earnings leap June 1, 2010 RYANAIR is to pay out a €500m (£417m) dividend to shareholders after the budget airline saw profits for the year soar by 204 per cent. Subject to approval, the Ireland- based airline said yesterday that it would be in a position to make the €500m return to shareholders through either share buy-backs or a one-off [...]
AirAsia moves into profit as leisure travellers flood flights June 1, 2010 BUDGET airline AirAsia yesterday posted bumper quarterly profits of £46.4m after tax thanks to a surge in leisure travel, but remained coy about plans for an initial public offering of its Thailand operations. The group credited its success to a 17 per cent rise in passenger numbers to 3.7m during the first three months of [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF RYANAIR’S RESULTS? June 1, 2010 DOUGLAS MCNEILL | CHARLES STANLEY “The business model for the airline seems to be in good shape and Ryanair has strengthened its top line with the sale of lower fares. The fact that the airline will pay out a dividend is good news because dividend payments for airlines are as rare as leprechauns.” MATT BROWN [...]
Gartmore star trader will face an FSA probe June 1, 2010 JUST as embattled find manager Gartmore thought the worst of its woes were over, the Financial Services Authority (FSA) yesterday announced it will launch its own investigation into one of its star traders. Guillaume Rambourg’s “directing shares” scandal will be put under the spotlight just a month after he returned to the firm following an [...]
Nomura team triple pay pot June 1, 2010 JAPANESE bank Nomura tripled the amount it handed out in compensation to its executive team last year after the bank returned to profit, arguing that it needed to maintain a “competitive” pay structure to keep top talent on board. Chief executive Kenichi Watanabe, chief operating officer Takumi Shibata and eight other executives shared a total [...]
European insurers line up to buy half-stake in Barclays Vie June 1, 2010 A QUEUE of European insurers is waiting in the wings to snap up half of Barclays’ French life insurance business, Barclays Vie, after the bank last week entered talks to offload a 50 per cent stake in the venture for around €65m (£54.2m). French groups CNP Assurances, Axa and La Mondiale are all thought to [...]
Deloitte rewards staff in the UK following expansion of business June 1, 2010 GLOBAL accountancy giant Deloitte has promoted 32 staff to its partnership in the UK, across audit, tax, consulting and corporate finance. The move comes in addition to the creation of 30 new partners since the start of the year following developments to the business, including the acquisition of commercial property agent Drivers Jonas. Deloitte chairman [...]