Balfour raises 380m to buy rival US firm September 17, 2009 CONSTRUCTION firm Balfour Beatty yesterday said it has agreed to buy US project management firm Parsons Brinckerhoff for $626m (£380m), in a deal partly funded by a surprise rights issue. The group said it was launching a fully underwritten £353m cash call to fund the acquisition, which it believes will give it a leading position [...]
M&Ain focus in Credit Suisse’s buyer/seller list September 17, 2009 KRAFT’S bid last week for UK confectionary giant Cadbury will be the first of many buyout attempts, according to a Credit Suisse analyst. The analyst at the Swiss bank Richard Kersley yesterday sent out a table of companies that he believes are the most likely to buy a rival and of those companies that look [...]
BBC hits back at Bradshaw as row grows September 17, 2009 THE BBC’s embattled director general Mark Thompson yesterday accused the government of trying to abolish the BBC Trust because the independent governing body opposed its own point of view. Thompson’s attack on the government came at the Royal Television Society Cambridge conference, in which he responded to culture secretary Ben Bradshaw’s comments that the BBC [...]
A little bit of optimism in the air for media folk September 17, 2009 EMMA KEENS AT THE RTS THE great and the good of the television industry were in a surprisingly upbeat mood yesterday as they gathered for the Royal Television Society Cambridge convention. Surprising when you consider that commercial networks have experienced what ITV chief operating officer John Cresswell described as “a dose of recession shock therapy”. [...]
The Observer gets a reprieve September 17, 2009 THE Observer has been saved for the time being, with its owners deciding on increasing the integration between it and its daily stable-mate, the Guardian, in preference to a closure of the Sunday title. Yesterday Guardian News & Media said it had been working on a plan for further editorial integration between the two titles, [...]
Google plans to print 2m books September 17, 2009 GOOGLE yesterday unveiled plans to print 2m books after striking a deal with a book printing company. Over the last seven years, Google has been scanning millions of out-of-print books from libraries and made them searchable on the internet. But now bookstores that purchase the Espresso Book Machine – which is made by Google’s partner [...]
ONLINE DRAGONS BREATHING FIRE INTO AN ALL-NEW TELEVISION DEN September 16, 2009 ANYONE unwinding last night with a glass of wine and a dose of evening telly might have caught sight of a familiar face on the box – Julie Meyer, City A.M. columnist and founder of Ariadne Capital, who appeared on the first episode of the new Dragons’ Den spin-off show on BBC2. Meyer – who [...]
Losses grow wider at Regal September 16, 2009 REGAL PETROLEUM, the oil and gas group, reported a widening first-half net loss yesterday, but said it was expecting improved earnings for the next year as funding problems at the group have been resolved. The firm reported a net loss for the six months to the end of June of $7.57m (£4.59m) compared with $5.26m [...]
Recovery in commodities boosts profits at Ambrian September 16, 2009 NATURAL resources investment bank Ambrian Capital moved back into profit over the first half of the year after total income almost tripled, boosted by a strong performance in the commodities division. Ambrian’s income rose to £10.13m in the six months to June, compared to £3.74m in the first half of 2008. Pre-tax profit came in [...]
De La Rue hit by costs as it restructures September 16, 2009 BANKNOTE printer De La Rue yesterday said it would be hit by £7.5m of exceptional costs thanks to a revamp at its cash-processing unit and a one-off tax fee. The firm, which prints notes in 150 national currencies, has been forced to pump £5m in to overhaul the underperforming unit, which makes banknote-sorting machines and [...]