Stalemate for mining giants Xstrata and Anglo American June 25, 2009 A TIE-UP between Xtrata and Anglo American “remains unattractive for Anglo shareholders,” sources familiar with the talks said yesterday, a day after Xstrata published details of the merger in a bid to convince shareholders of the merits of the deal. “The Anglo board has firmly rebuffed Xstrata’s proposal,” one industry expert added. Xstrata upped the [...]
HAPPY RETURN FOR BIRTHDAYS June 25, 2009 CLINTON Cards, the greeting card chain, has bought up 196 Birthdays stores a month after it put the business into administration. Under the terms of the deal, which will save around 1,450 jobs, Clintons will discharge £3.25m of the debt owed to it by Birthdays. It will pay a further £0.25m in cash to administrator [...]
Record start at StanChart June 25, 2009 STANDARD Chartered has enjoyed record income and pre-tax operating profit so far this year, the bank said yesterday in a trading update, as it announced it had cut 2,500 jobs. The bank, which focuses on emerging markets, said income growth had been boosted by a strong performance in wholesale banking, although income in consumer banking [...]
Steelmaker Corus to cut 2,000 British jobs as demand nosedives June 25, 2009 Europe’s second largest steelmaker Corus said yesterday it was planning to cut a further 1,922 jobs in Britain’s industrial heartlands, alongside axing another 123 staff in the Netherlands. Of the jobs to be cut in Britain, some 800 will go from Corus’ engineering steel sites in the northern English towns of Rotherham and Stocksbridge, while [...]
Svanberg of Ericsson will be BP’s chair June 25, 2009 BP named Ericsson chief executive Carl-Henric Svanberg as its new chairman yesterday, in a surprise appointment which ended the British oil major’s lengthy search for a successor to Peter Sutherland. BP chief executive Tony Hayward said the firm would benefit from Swedish Svanberg’s experience in emerging markets and in dealing with governments. Svanberg, who will [...]
H&M bucks retail sector gloom June 25, 2009 Swedish budget clothing group Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) yesterday bucked retail sector woes as it reported a rise in profits for the second quarter of the year, beating analyst forecasts. H&M, the world’s third-biggest clothing retailer, posted a 6.4 per cent increase in pre-tax profit to 5.78bn Swedish crowns (£445m) for the three months to [...]
Deloitte forms anti-spying team June 25, 2009 Deloitte yesterday said it has formed a new corporate counter-espionage team to coincide with the government’s launch of a new cyber-security plan. The accountancy firm’s new team, in the security, privacy and resilience group, will be headed up by Steve Cummings, an ex-senior government security official who was previously director of the Centre for the [...]
Nike fourth-quarter profit falls June 25, 2009 Sportswear giant Nike saw a 30 per cent decline in fourth-quarter profit, due largely to $195m (£119m) in restructuring costs, as well as falling revenue due to a lack of future orders amid the recession. Nike reported earnings of $341.4m for the quarter ending 31 May, down from $490.5m in the same quarter last year. [...]
MICHAEL JACKSON 1958-2009 June 25, 2009 MICHAEL Jackson, the troubled King of Pop, died at the age of 50, after collapsing at his Los Angeles home with a suspected heart attack yesterday. The singer, who dominated the world of pop music for four decades, was found not breathing and immediately rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead after efforts to [...]
BA STAFF AGREE TO WORK FOR FREE June 25, 2009 EIGHT HUNDRED British Airways (BA) staff will work for nothing next month, after the struggling airline convinced 7,000 employees, or 17 per cent of its workforce, to take a pay cut. Chief executive Willie Walsh, who earns £735,000 a year, said the staff would save the airline around £10m. Walsh has already agreed to work [...]