Nasdaq OMX to shut Euro trading arm April 28, 2010 NASDAQ OMX will close its European multi-lateral trading platform, Neuro, next month after the exchange group cited weak prospects for the business due to a competitive market. The move comes just 18 months after Nasdaq launched the European arm and said that an additional problem with the system was that it wasn’t owned by a [...]
Bank of America appoints Holliday as new chairman April 28, 2010 BANK of America Merrill Lynch (BoA) appointed Charles Holliday as its new chairman yesterday after the bank’s annual general meeting. Holliday, who has served as a director since September last year, will take over from Walter Massey, who retired from the board after reaching the bank’s mandatory retirement age of 72. Prior to joining BoA, [...]
GARTMORE FUND MANAGER BACK AT WORK April 28, 2010 GUILLAUME Rambourg, the star Gartmore fund manager suspended last month, has been allowed to return to work, sending its shares up 15.5 per cent to 164p. He had been suspended for allegedly breaking the firm’s strict rules on “directing shares”. Rambourg will not return as a fund manager, he will take up a lesser role [...]
HP enters smartphone market after buying Palm for $1.2bn April 28, 2010 HEWLETT-PACKARD (HP) has struck a $1.2bn (£789m) deal to buy Palm, offering a 23 per cent premium to expand into the smartphone market. The news comes after rising speculation on who would buy Palm, which once dominated the market but recently has been overshadowed by Apple iPhone, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry and phones that use [...]
UKFI votes for RBS bonuses April 28, 2010 THE governing body responsible for overseeing the taxpayer’s stake in Royal Bank of Scotland has voted overwhelmingly in favour of the banks’s new remuneration structure. The bank agreed to toughen up its bonus criteria after it came in for fierce criticism for setting the bar too low for lucrative performance-related incentive packages to come into [...]
General Electric chief eyeing growth and dividend increase April 28, 2010 General Electric is returning to “good, solid” earnings growth and plans to raise its dividend “at least” by 2011, chief executive Jeffrey Immelt told investors yesterday. “The clouds are breaking and the forecast ahead of us is promising,” Immelt told the annual meeting of the largest US conglomerate in Houston. The world’s largest maker of [...]
Goldman boss Blankfein says he has not thought about resigning April 28, 2010 Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein yesterday said he has not thought about resigning amid accusations the firm helped inflate the housing bubble and then made billions off the market’s collapse. Blankfein was asked in an ABC interview aired on Good Morning America whether it had ever crossed his mind to resign. “No it hasn’t”, [...]
Nomura fails to compete with US rivals April 28, 2010 Nomura’s inability to take advantage of an upswing in the US credit market led to modest quarterly profits and raised questions as to just how quickly it can become a global powerhouse. Nomura Holdings posted a fourth straight quarterly profit on the back of recovering stock markets, but Japan’s top broker failed to match the [...]
Franklin sees huge investment surge April 28, 2010 Franklin Resources quarterly profit more than tripled as investors put billions of dollars into the money manager’s global portfolios. The company, which manages the popular Franklin Income Fund and Templeton Global Bond Fund, took in $17.4bn (£11.5bn) in new cash during the quarter, significantly more than rivals such as T Rowe Price Group, which pulled [...]
Kraft boss tops female pay elite April 28, 2010 Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft Foods was the highest paid female executive in 2009 and one of 15 women chief executives on the annual list of the heads of the 500 biggest companies in the US, according to Forbes.com. Rosenfeld, 56, jumped to the top slot by nearly tripling her compensation package to $16.7m (£11m). She [...]