Russia halts oil flow to Belarus January 3, 2010 RUSSIA has halted oil supplies to Belarussian refineries after failing to agree terms for 2010, traders said yesterday, threatening a repeat of a dispute which disrupted supplies to elsewhere in Europe three years ago. Deliveries to Belarus refineries were halted after talks broke down on New Year’s Eve. Transit flows to other parts of Europe [...]
EX-LEHMAN ANALYST’S SITE IS FULL OF HOT AIR January 3, 2010 WHEELER dealers in the City may already be aware of the name Nicolas Dickreuter the former Lehman Brothers M&A analyst who hit the headlines last year with a penny auction site, psychoauction.com, offering iPods, stereos and other expensive goods for a fraction of the price. Not content with his first stab at entrepreneurialism, Dickreuter is [...]
COLD AS ICE January 3, 2010 Continuing on its aggressive drive for diverse cultural supremacy, Canary Wharf has decided to treat its army of suits to yet another arty extravaganza for the New Year – in the form of the annual London Ice Sculpting Festival will take place on 15 and 16 January next to the ice rink in Canada Square [...]
TAN TASTIC January 3, 2010 City types might think they’ve got a rough deal from the UK government after it introduced a damning windfall tax on bank bonuses last month, but spare a thought for our poor US counterparts, who are struggling with an altogether uglier reality. Before packing up for the holidays, lawmakers in Washington pushed through a 10 [...]
HELL ON HIGH WATER January 3, 2010 Everyone’s favourite daredevil chief executive, Helical Bar boss Mike Slade, has been up to his old tricks again over the Christmas period in his ICAP Leopard super-maxi racing yacht. Slade, who’s broken a whole haul of records with the yacht since launching it on the race circuit, was unable to take line honours in the [...]
UK and US shut up embassies in Yemen January 3, 2010 THE United States and Britain closed their embassies in Yemen yesterday over security concerns about possible militant attacks after the failed bombing of a US-bound plane on Christmas Day. The US embassy cited threats by al Qaeda, which US intelligence agencies believe has a growing presence in Yemen. A British Foreign Office spokeswoman cited security [...]
Rusal float set to earn millions for Rothschild January 3, 2010 RUSSIAN aluminium firm Rusal, owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, is planning a $2.6bn (£1.6bn) flotation this month, tipped to earn millions for merchant bank NM Rothschild, it emerged yesterday. Rusal will sell 1.61 billion shares at up to HK$12.50 (£1) a share to cut $14.9bn (£9.2bn) of debt in a float set to value Rusal [...]
Rate revaluation spells tax hikes for businesses January 3, 2010 FIRMS across England and Wales are facing the prospect of dramatic tax hikes in April after changes to Government business rates. County cricket grounds, lifeboat stations, petrol filling stations, football stadia, coaching inns, golf driving ranges and zoos and safari parks will be among the hardest hit. Pubs, shops and restaurants will also see increases, [...]
MPC to hold rates and QE January 3, 2010 POLICYMAKERS are this week expected to err on the side of caution at the monthly meeting of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), after they warned last month that it would be impossible to identify with confidence the turning point in the economic cycle. The MPC, led by Bank governor Mervyn King, is [...]
Japan Airlines gets state loan doubled January 3, 2010 THE Japanese government has agreed to double the offer of statefunded credit to Japan Airlines (JAL) to 200bn yen (£1.3bn), it emerged yesterday. A state-run bank offered JAL aid of 100bn yen in November, and has already paid out more than half of that. Shares in JAL, which made a loss in four of the [...]