TD Bank awarded gilt status March 29, 2010 US bank Toronto Dominion Bank said yesterday its London branch has been recognised as a gilt-edged market maker by the UK Debt Management Office and the London Stock Exchange. As a recognised market maker, Toronto Dominion Bank said it would participate in gilt auctions by the UK government. UK government bond issuances rose to £225.1bn [...]
Balfour nets £200m contracts March 29, 2010 Infrastructure group Balfour Beatty has been handed a number of lucrative support services contracts worth around £200m from the Highways Agency, Anglian Water and Yorkshire Water. The Highways Agency entrusted Balfour Beatty an extension to a joint venture covering the motorway and trunk road network in the South West, while the firm will also now [...]
Sports Direct yet to agree Blacks deal March 29, 2010 SPORTS Direct will have to shelve its takeover bid for Blacks for six months if the two fail to agree on an offer price by Thursday. Its hopes of merging the retail giants have been put in jeopardy after claims that some key suppliers, including North Face, would not continue to work with Blacks if [...]
Petroceltic share placing raises £81m for exploration in North Africa and Italy March 29, 2010 IRISH oil and gas explorer Petroceltic will tap shareholders and several new investors for £81m to fund projects in Algeria and Italy. The dual Dublin and Aim-listed company announced a share placing at 12.75p per share yesterday, a modest discount to Friday’s closing price of 13p. Although the sum being raised is almost half the [...]
City rents rise by 12 per cent March 29, 2010 CITY office rents have recorded the biggest quarterly increase since 1988, in a sign that the Square Mile property market is clambering back to its feet. Rents shot up by 12 per cent in the first three months of 2010 from £42.50 per square foot to £47.50, according to a survey by NB Real Estate. [...]
Think tank calls for curbs on costly EU regulation March 29, 2010 THE SOARING costs of red tape came under the spotlight yesterday as a new report found that regulation has cost the UK economy £176bn over the past 12 years. Of that amount, around 71 per cent – or £124bn – was spent on complying with legislation from the EU, according to think tank Open Europe. [...]
Tax rises hit the price of luxury homes March 29, 2010 ANTICIPATION of increased taxes and lower bonuses has resulted in prices for London’s luxury homes increasing at the slowest rate for a year. According to Savills, the UK estate agent, prices for houses and apartments worth over £1m increased in the first quarter by only three per cent, compared with 4.6 per cent in the [...]
MOSCOW METRO BOMB HORROR March 29, 2010 A WOMAN places flowers in memory of the victims of a bomb explosion at Lubyanka metro station in Moscow. Two female suicide bombers killed at least 38 people on packed metro trains yesterday, stirring fears of a broader campaign in Russia’s heartland by Islamists from the North Caucasus.
BC Partners raises £672m in German IP0 March 29, 2010 Brenntag, the world’s biggest chemicals distributor, received a warm reception in its market debut as Germany’s second-biggest floatation this year in a transaction that will net its private equity owners BC Partners £672m. Brenntag’s listing comes as the global market for initial public offerings (IPOs) is gathering pace, after a number of downsizings and postponements, although [...]
The Budget was impotent March 29, 2010 IT was fitting that in the week of the impotent and Kafkaesque Budget, I would end up at the “Business Not as Usual” conference. It is a summit organised by the National Student Enterprise Conference, a grassroots movement of 35,000 UK university students. Leave it to the uncorrupted kids to get things right. Victoria Lennox [...]