Blackstone-owned Travelport aims to reduce debts after $2bn fund-raising January 19, 2010 TRAVELPORT, the services group operating in the travel industry, yesterday revealed plans to raise $2bn (£1.22bn) to reduce its indebtedness. Travelport is currently around 70 per cent owned by Blackstone, the private equity group. Travelport will be raising $1.775bn through a public offering, and a further $225m will be raised by selling a seven per [...]
LAND SECURITIES BUILDING BOOM January 19, 2010 LAND Securities yesterday announced a £655m West End development programme, with buildings due for completion by the summer of 2013. Park House will be the largest development on Oxford Street for 40 years and Wellington House and Selborne House (left) will be built in Victoria. The buildings will be for a mix of office, retail [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 19, 2010 Collins Stewart The investment banking group’s wealth management division has hired Richard Christmas to its new corporate executive and employee trading (CEET) desk. He joins from Credit Suisse, where he worked with Michael Smith, now head of the CEET desk for Collins Stewart, which provides broker services to listed firms, their employees and third-party share [...]
The City’s most fearsome litigator still has plenty of fire in his belly January 19, 2010 Change is on the way at Herbert Smith as David Gold, who over the last 36 years has built a reputation as one of the most fearsome commercial litigators in the country, will stand down after five years as the City law firm’s senior partner in April. In a distinguished career, Gold has represented Abbey [...]
MEETING OF MINDS AS CITY TITANS PARTNER UP January 19, 2010 IT’S not every day you see an alliance struck up between one of the Square Mile’s most outspoken private equity veterans and the only female chief executive of an independent City stockbroker. But when Alchemy Partners founder Jon Moulton yesterday confirmed he had started in his new non-executive chairman role at broker FinnCap, headed up [...]
Citigroup in £4.7bn loss January 19, 2010 CITIGROUP has reported a loss of $7.6bn (£4.7bn) for the final three months of 2009 after being hit by the repayment of government loans. The results were worse than had been forecast by analysts. Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit remained upbeat despite the huge loss. He said the bank had made “enormous progress in 2009”. [...]
Cadbury board gives green light to Kraft takeover January 18, 2010 THE Cadbury board has recommended that its shareholders agree a takeover by American conglomerate Kraft Foods that values the maker of Dairy Milk and Twirl at £11.5bn. It said the offer of 840p plus a 10p dividend per share represented good value. The consensual deal is a dramatic finale to a takeover battle that has [...]
Burberry smashes sales forecasts January 18, 2010 BURBERRY sales soared by 12 per cent in the three months to the end of the year – well above forecasts. The company took £380m over the period as it stripped out unprofitable lines and kept a tighter control on stock. Wholesale revenue – which comes from department stores that stock the group’s trademark red, [...]
Carphone Warehouse in revenue boost January 18, 2010 CARPHONE Warehouse has upped its full-year forecasts for the second time in a matter of months after strong trading at both its retail and broadband arms during the third quarter. The FTSE 250 group, which is splitting into two businesses in March, says earnings per share to the end of March are likely to be [...]
Small caps are predicted to outperform again January 18, 2010 AFTER being decimated during the financial crisis of 2008, smaller cap companies enjoyed an outstanding 2009 according to RBS’s Hoare Govett Smaller Companies (HGSC) index. The index, which consists of the bottom tenth by value of listed UK equities not including the Alternative Investment Market (Aim), recorded an absolute performance of 54.2 per cent. This [...]