US new home sales rocket July 27, 2009 SALES of new homes in the US surged to a seven-month high in June, while the inventory of homes for sale fell to its lowest level in more than 11 years, official data showed yesterday, boosting hopes that the US housing market may finally be starting to stabilise. Government figures indicated an 11 per cent [...]
Easing inflation worries improve German consumer confidence July 27, 2009 GERMAN consumer confidence rose to its highest level in more than a year as easing inflation encouraged shoppers, according to data from research group GfK yesterday. The GfK consumer sentiment indicator, rose to 3.5 going into August from an upwardly revised reading of 3.0 for July. “Inflation is fading and people have more money in [...]
Upturn for corporate credit July 27, 2009 BRITISH corporate credit conditions improved in the second quarter of the year, partly as a result of asset purchases by the Bank of England (BoE), the central bank said yesterday. Market contacts reported improved liquidity and price transparency for corporate bonds, and short-dated commercial paper issuance declined because firms were able to find longer-term finance, [...]
Pearson rises as education arm thrives July 27, 2009 PEARSON helped the FTSE 100 book gains for the eleventh day in a row yesterday, after the owner of Penguin Books and The Financial Times said it would match last year’s profits. The world’s biggest publisher of text books said that half year pre-tax profits at the firm, which makes the majority of earnings in [...]
Wolseley says there will be no pick up until 2010 July 27, 2009 BUILDING supplies company Wolseley yesterday said that the market would not pick up for the rest of 2009, as it announced that pre-tax profits for the 11 months to the end of June were down 60 per cent. The firm, which shed 30,000 of its 80,000 workers in the past two years, said while there [...]
Tata hires KPMG to help cut costs at Jaguar as its earnings in India surge July 27, 2009 JAGUAR LAND ROVER’S (JLR) owner, Tata Motors, has hired KPMG and Roland Berger Strategy Consultants to advise it on cost-cutting at the struggling car firm. The carmaker will be given advice on how to break even and on how to manage its cashflow more effectively. “We are going ahead with their proposals and this is [...]
Ryanair pledges to continue cutting fares at the expense of yearly profits July 27, 2009 BUDGET airline Ryanair saw its shares slump eight per cent yesterday after it told the market it would continue to slash fares to win passengers during the downturn. The Irish carrier also said its net profits in the first quarter rose sixfold to €136.5m (£100m), thanks to falling oil costs, and that it expected passenger [...]
IMA hails record retail sales July 27, 2009 Retail investors are re-entering investment funds in force, after scaling down their investments to prevent losses during the credit crunch, with net retail sales over the second quarter the highest on record. The Investment Management Association (IMA) said the industry booked net retail sales of £2.5bn in the month of June. IMA head Richard Saunders [...]
BC Partners writes up fund value July 27, 2009 Private equity firm BC Partners, which has estate agent Foxtons as its largest investment, wrote up its current fund by almost a quarter in the first half, returning it to par value, a person familiar with the matter said yesterday. The markup is one of the first signs that European buyout houses, who took steep [...]
Verizon profits slump in crunch July 27, 2009 US telecoms giant Verizon yesterday said second-quarter profit fell 7.2 per cent hurt by higher costs and less demand among business customers pinched by the crunch. Profits fell to $3.16bn, or 52 cents a share, in the three months ended 30 June, down from $3.4bn the same period a year earlier. To counter slowing sales [...]