Burrows set for BAT chair August 16, 2009 RICHARD Burrows, former governor of the Bank of Ireland (BoI), will be named this week as chairman of British American Tobacco (BAT). Burrows will fill the gap left by Jan du Plessis, who announced in April that he was stepping down after taking up the chairmanship of mining giant Rio Tinto. BAT is the world’s [...]
Allied Irish Bank receives an approach to sell minor stake August 16, 2009 ALLIED Irish Bank is believed to have received an approach from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce which wants to take a minority stake in the lender. The Irish institution had earlier said it received an approach from a third party. Earlier this month Allied Irish said it was over the worst of the financial crisis [...]
BLOCKBUSTER BOX OFFICE August 16, 2009 Britain’s second-biggest cinema chain, Cineworld, is likely to post strong first-half numbers on Thursday, buoyed by the success of blockbuster films such as Slumdog Millionaire and Transformers. The cinema industry has seen attendances at their highest level for seven years – with ticket sales up 14.5 per cent to 83.5m –according to the Cinema Advertising [...]
Experts urge caution for UK market gains August 16, 2009 RECENT market exuberance may be ill-advised as the UK faces further pain before it can follow France and Germany out of recession, economists warned yesterday. The benchmark FTSE 100 index of Britain’s biggest companies touched a 10-month high of 4,755 points during last week’s trading. But these heights may not be underpinned by economic fundamentals. [...]
Amey set for a record breaking year in slump August 16, 2009 AMEY, the Spanish-owned group helping to upgrade the London Underground, said it is on course to make £2bn in revenue for the year, clearing the way to become one of the 10 biggest construction groups operating in the UK. Sales went up to around £1.5bn last year, Amey said in a report filed to Companies [...]
IS THE UK RECESSION SET TO END ALONG WITH FRANCE’S AND GERMANY’S? August 16, 2009 DAVID BUIK BGC PARTNERSNo, we are behind the curve. There is little doubt that the two main players from the EU have more balanced economies. Conversely, the UK has tended to neglect manufacturing output and industrial production.JEREMY BATSTONE-CARR CHARLES STANLEYNo. It goes without saying that the Bank of England clearly does not share the general [...]
Cowdery gets nod from UKFI August 16, 2009 RESOLUTION, the buyout vehicle headed by Clive Cowdery, is confident the Treasury would not bar it from bidding for the life insurance assets of Lloyds Banking Group due to its controversial tax-haven status. Cowdery has been given the green light and is now considering a bid for the Lloyds’ Clerical Medical unit, after dispatching an [...]
London retail sales continue growth despite July washout August 16, 2009 LONDON’S retail sales growth continued to outpace the rest of the UK last month but with the narrowest lead in nine months, figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) will show today. The capital’s like-for-like sales increased by 2.2 per cent in July compared with the same month a year earlier when same-store sales were [...]
Havens leave blacklist as OECD removes Virgin Islands, Cayman August 16, 2009 TAX HAVENS the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman islands have been removed from an official “grey list” of countries that disregard tax secrecy laws. Homes to countless hedge funds due to their low taxes and secrecy, the nations are now on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) white list. Both nations signed [...]
IRON ORE WOES August 16, 2009 MINER BHP Billiton yesterday called for greater transparency in iron ore pricing, and slammed the current system of negotiation. The comments come after China detained four workers at BHP’s rival Rio Tinto, which has been accused of bribery. BHP’s chief financial officer Alex Vanselow said a pricing mechanism used for negotiating a copper price could [...]