Tesco Finance linked to bid for Northern Rock June 30, 2009 TESCO has emerged as a potential bidder for nationalised bank Northern Rock. Britain’s biggest retailer has shown provisional interest alongside private equity funds and Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. Tesco is eager to cash in on growing disillusionment with traditional banks and in March announced plans to open bank branches in 30 of its stores. Buying [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 30, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES EON WARNS ON EU EMISSION COSTSThe European Union risks driving industry out of the region if it continues to push for deeper cuts in carbon dioxide emissions than other economies, according to the chief executive of Eon, one of the world’s biggest renewable energy companies. Wulf Bernotat, Eon’s chief executive, told the Financial [...]
Bowker quits as National Express boss June 30, 2009 RICHARD BOWKER, the chairman of bus and rail operator National Express, stood down last night after a tumultuous month for the company, City A.M. can confirm. Bowker, once group commercial director of Virgin Group and co-chairman of Virgin Rail, quit ahead of today’s update regarding the operating terms on the east coast main line, which [...]
Sir Keith Mills intensifies his bitter battle with Coutts June 30, 2009 SIR Keith Mills, the founder of the Air Miles and Nectar loyalty programmes, is today launching an advertising campaign alleging Coutts gave him faulty advice to deposit £65m of his savings in an AIG fund. AIG later ran into severe trouble, forcing the US government to bail it out. On 15 September AIG suspended the [...]
The Pirate Bay sold June 30, 2009 Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory yesterday agreed to buy free file-sharing website The Pirate Bay for 60m Swedish crowns (£4.7m) and said it would find ways to compensate copyright owners for downloaded material. The four Swedish men behind the website were sentenced in April to one year in jail and ordered to pay more [...]
Carlyle has $1bn for Asian fund June 30, 2009 Carlyle Group, the US private equity group, said yesterday it had raised $1.04bn (£607m) for its fourth Asian growth capital fund, a 46 per cent increase from the previous fund size. The funds invest in high growth private companies in China, India, Korea and other Asian markets.
Japan bank merger likely June 30, 2009 Japan’s Shinsei Bank and Aozora Bank, two loss-making lenders backed by US investors, are likely to announce plans today to merge by next year. The deal, which would create Japan’s sixth-largest bank by assets, will likely be completed by the autumn of 2010, sources say. The merger ratio is likely to be set at one-to-one, [...]
Incisive Media June 30, 2009 Banks are moving to take control of Incisive Media, the UK business-to-business publisher, in a debt-for-equity swap. The deal would leave its private equity owner Apax Partners with only a negligible stake. Incisive, owner of titles Legal Week, Risk and Hedge Funds Review, breached the terms of its loan in December.
Contraction in GDP is fastest in fifty years June 30, 2009 THE UK economy contracted at the fastest pace since 1958 in the first quarter of 2009, raising expectations that the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee could expand quantitative easing. The Office for National Statistics said yesterday that it had revised downwards its estimate for first quarter GDP to -2.4 per cent from -1.9 per [...]
Keydata plot thickens as PwC discovers a 103m black hole June 30, 2009 ADMINISTRATORS of failed structured product firm Keydata have unearthed a £103m black hole in its assets, as it emerged two mysterious groups it was trading with have vanished along with customers’ money. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has involved the Serious Fraud Office as it believes the funds may have been “misappropriated”. PwC is trying to ascertain why [...]