Magna set to slash thousands of jobs at Opel and Vauxhall September 14, 2009 CARMAKER Opel could slash as many as 10,500 jobs under a massive restructuring by new owner Magna, bosses at the Canadian car parts maker said yesterday. Co-chief executive for Magna Siegfried Wolf said the cuts could take over a year to carry out. The news comes days after car giant General Motors (GM) agreed to [...]
Conservatives consider sale of bank stakes to private investors September 14, 2009 CONSERVATIVE shadow chancellor George Osborne would consider selling the government’s stakes in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland to non-banking investors, if the Tories win the general election. Osborne is understood to be in favour of greater diversity on the share registers of the banks and is keen to show that a Conservative [...]
WIN RESHUFFLES BOARD September 14, 2009 SIR Win Bischoff takes over from Sir Victor Blank as chairman of Lloyds Banking Group today. The former Citigroup chairman is expected to launch a boardroom reshuffle that will axe non-executive directors left over from the HBOS takeover and see several departures from the executive board. One of Bischoff’s first tasks will be to oversee [...]
Heidelberg in 2.5bn issue to ease debts September 14, 2009 HEIDELBERGCEMENT has unveiled a large capital raising that is likely to raise around €2.5bn (£2.2bn), as the German cement firm scrambles to slash its €11.3bn debt mountain. The firm said it plans to boost its capital by 50 per cent by issuing 62.5m new shares in a rights issue of one new share for each [...]
Cadbury boss will fight Kraft takeover September 14, 2009 Dairy Milk maker Cadbury is set to ramp up its defence against Kraft’s £10.2bn takeover bid when chief executive Todd Stitzer addresses investors and analysts at Sanford Bernstein’s London offices tomorrow. Stitzer is also understood to be considering bringing forward the confectionary group’s third quarter results in a bid to reassure investors of the company’s [...]
Saudi wealth lures Barclays September 14, 2009 BARCLAYS is planning to push into the private banking arena in Saudi Arabia to take advantage of the concentration of high net worth individuals in the region’s largest economy. Soha Nashaat, chief executive of Barclays private banking in the Middle East and North Africa, said Saudi Arabia was “massive in terms of percentage of GDP [...]
Goldshield is in buyout talks September 14, 2009 GOLDSHIELD, the generic drugs firm, yesterday confirmed it is in advanced talks with AIT, a buyout alliance that includes the firm’s former chief executive, over a possible takeover. AIT, formed of pharma firm Neopharm and Goldshield’s ex-boss Ajit Patel, said earlier it was carrying out due diligence on the group. Patel left the firm in [...]
BROWN AND TUC CLASH ON CUTS September 13, 2009 PRIME Minister Gordon Brown will tomorrow pave the way for a much tougher stance on public spending in a key speech to trade unionists. He will warn increasingly angry trade unionists to support him or face what he claims would be even tougher cuts from the Tories. The speech comes as tension between Labour and [...]
Boom days return for derivatives September 13, 2009 ACTIVITY on the international derivatives market rebounded to $426 trillion (£256 trillion) in the second quarter, signalling the return of risk appetite, but remained below pre-crisis levels. According to a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) report published today, total turnover of derivatives rose by 16 per cent, mainly driven by futures and options on short-term [...]
Dick Fuld: I’m sorry after all September 13, 2009 DICK Fuld, the man who presided over the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers that sent shockwaves around the world, has said sorry to former staff of the firm. A year after the spectacular bank failure, it has emerged that Fuld privately confessed he spent too much time out of the office and not [...]