British companies pay £10bn less in dividends during 2009 February 7, 2010 UK DIVIDENDS plummeted by £10bn in 2009 as companies looked to shore up their capital bases. Analysis by Capita Registrars found that investors are increasingly dependent on just a few companies for the bulk of payments, with a dominant quintet of BP, Shell, HSBC, Vodafone and GlaxoSmithKline paying out almost half the year’s dividends. Within [...]
Vodafone secures bumper four year mobile contract for Oracle February 7, 2010 VODAFONE has won a huge contract to manage the mobile services of multinational tech company Oracle. The world’s biggest mobile provider will manage the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa regions for at least four years. The bumper contract will involve servicing the voice, data and mobile services for a network of over 16,000 employees. [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 7, 2010 PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS Christine Cross, a former Tesco director, has joined the accountancy firm as chief retail adviser. Cross currently holds non-executive directorships at High Street retailer Next and Empire, the second largest Canadian grocery chain. She was at Tesco between 1989 and 2003, latterly as business development director. She is also currently a retail adviser to [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 7, 2010 BARCLAYS Shore Capital has reiterated its “buy” recommendation, saying it continues to view Barclays as the most attractively valued UK bank on a risk/return basis. The broker has downgraded earnings and rebased dividend forecasts, reflecting a quieter fourth quarter for BarCap, tighter margins and a focus on capital preservation. ROYAL DUTCH SHELL Morgan Stanley says [...]
Tullow hangs on for Uganda oil approval February 7, 2010 TULLOW Oil is edging closer to gaining full approval from the Ugandan government to snap up $1.5bn (£959m) worth of oil fields in the country, as it remains locked in discussions with two separate oil majors over the structure of a future partnership to develop the assets. Tullow’s path to buying the fields from Heritage [...]
A new mood of fear is pulling down markets February 7, 2010 THE TERM double-dip is over-used; our viewers always get upset with us if we refer to it too often. But where is this cycle going? It’s certainly not looking good. February seemed to start off well with decent earnings reports and some stronger data from the US, but at the end of last week sovereign [...]
China economy to grow 10pc this year February 7, 2010 AN OFFICIAL think tank has forecast China’s GDP will expand around 10 per cent in 2010, driven by investment and domestic consumption, the official Xinhua agency reported yesterday. Strong first-quarter growth of 11 per cent will slow slightly for the rest of the year, with the pace of expansion dipping just below 10 per cent [...]
50 top female hedge fund stars named February 7, 2010 FIFTY of the most powerful women in hedge funds have been named in a new survey celebrating the achievements of the fairer sex in an environment traditionally dominated by alpha males. Fourteen London-based women are among those named in the survey, published by the Hedge Fund Journal and PricewaterhouseCoopers, making the capital the second largest [...]
Confidence high among firms February 7, 2010 THE slow economic recovery has not dampened the spirits of UK business owners, a survey by business adviser RSM Tenon has found. Many of the survey respondents said the situation will not take long to improve, with 59 per cent of those polled indicating that they felt confident about potential opportunities for their businesses over [...]
Positive outlook from Aim-listed companies for the coming year February 7, 2010 CONFIDENCE among Aim-listed companies has increased, with nearly nine in 10 reporting a positive outlook for their own business over the next 12 months, a survey of 142 companies has found. This compares favourably with 2008, when only 51 per cent of those polled were as confident. Financial services group Smith and Williamson, which conducted [...]