Handicare in £44m deal as private equity rush continues February 1, 2010 THE private equity resurgence continued yesterday as Gresham Private Equity prepares to sell stair-lift company Minivator to Handicare Group in a deal worth £44m, City A.M. has learned. The UK buyout firm made a return of more than three times the £14m it paid for the mobility aid manufacturer in 2004. The mid-market deal comes [...]
Confidence rises among corporates February 1, 2010 Corporate confidence is increasing, but the majority of companies are still taking a cautious approach in 2010, research has found. The survey by Ernst & Young, which polled senior executives at nearly 900 companies, found that, despite consensus that restricted access to capital will constrain growth this year, nearly a third said they intended to [...]
CITY VIEWS: will the government’s push to drive smoking underground work? February 1, 2010 ADRIAN TURNER | PELDON ROSE “I think it’s a good thing, although I’ve never actually had anything against smokers. I think all the government’s measures against smoking are good in principle, but personally I think that banning it from pubs was a bad idea.” JAMES HOLMES | LLOYDS TSB “I’m trying to quit, so anything [...]
Toyota plans quick fix as crisis grows February 1, 2010 TOYOTA detailed plans yesterday to fix 2.4m vehicles equipped with faulty accelerators in the US as the first lawsuits landed on its desk. Lawyers claimed the world’s largest carmaker had endangered drivers by ignoring signs of trouble. Toyota, scrambling to contain the fallout from the sweeping recall on its finances and reputation, said it would [...]
Shell signs £8bn ethanol deal February 1, 2010 BRAZILIAN sugar and biofuel giant Cosan plans to merge its ethanol and fuel distribution units with Royal Dutch Shell in a deal worth up to $12bn (£7.5bn), extending a trend of growing foreign investment in the fast-growing industry. The deal significantly expands Shell’s ethanol operations in Brazil and follows moves by British oil major BP, [...]
Morgan Stanley to hire hundreds of new traders February 1, 2010 Morgan Stanley plans to hire several hundred traders over the next few years to boost its underperforming securities business, its new chief executive James Gorman said yesterday. The US investment bank’s sales and trading unit has failed to win enough new business, Gorman said in an interview with the Financial Times. He added: “We need [...]
Hedge funds are back from the brink February 1, 2010 IN A further sign that hedge funds have bounced back, the number of searches for the industry’s top managers more than doubled last year. With hedge funds posting the strongest returns in a decade in 2009, management research firms are performing significantly more senior staff searches for their clients. Global consultancy firm Hewitt Associates said [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 1, 2010 BSKYB Evolution cut its valuation 10p to 560p, despite 10 per cent revenue growth. Concerns about rising programming and transmission costs mean it sees the 50 per cent earnings growth as too optimistic. Other worries include threats from web rivals and regulators, and necessary investment denting operating leverage. WM MORRISON Execution has raised its rating [...]
German data grab to tackle tax evasion February 1, 2010 Germany should do everything in its power to obtain data to fight tax evasion, Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday after a whistleblower offered to sell German authorities secret Swiss bank data. The informant is understood to have offered data of up to 1,500 possible tax evaders with accounts in Switzerland which could lead to €100m [...]
Davos is outdated as power is redistributed February 1, 2010 So you didn’t go to the World Economic Forum in Davos this year. Me neither. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. As Davos coverage spun through the media again this year, I wondered whether those 2,000 people who do go actually control the future of business. Is it just my wishful thinking that power [...]