Alliance Trust wins backing of City bosses April 19, 2015 Embattled Alliance Trust boss Katherine Garrett-Cox won the support of a series of business bosses over the weekend, as the leaders spoke up in favour of her stewardship. Activist investor Elliott Advisors is pushing to add three new directors to the FTSE 250 investment group’s board, arguing that its executives need to be pushed harder [...]
Beware, Sid – Lloyds sale could be tricky April 19, 2015 A big retail offering of Lloyds shares is on the cards. Large-scale privatisation is back. David Cameron is promising a £4bn sale of Lloyds shares to retail customers, swapping one big government shareholder for thousands of individuals. An instant comparison is with the 1980s. Giant firms like BT, BP and British Gas were taken out [...]
Mike Ashley funds purchase of Chelsea development worth £900m April 19, 2015 Mike Ashley has financed a deal for a lucrative development in Chelsea that could be worth around £900m according to reports. The Newcastle United owner and Sports Direct founder is said to have provided the £200m paid by Citygrove and McLaren Properties for a development site from John Lewis. According to The Sunday Times, the money [...]
Standard & Poor’s upgrades Nokia and puts Alcatel-Lucent on positive watch April 17, 2015 Was selling off its mobile manufacturing arm the best decision Nokia's management ever made? Following a generally positive reaction to its proposal to buy Alcatel-Lucent earlier this week, it's only gone and been upgraded by credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's… In a statement today S&P said it was upgrading the Finnish former mobile manufacturer [...]
Quindell share price edges up as investors vote in favour of Slater & Gordon deal April 17, 2015 Quindell shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a deal to sell its professional services arm to Australian law firm Slater & Gordon, with 99.1 per cent in favour of the deal. Shares in the company rose 1.3 per cent to 133p after the vote, which took place at an extraordinary general meeting held in [...]
Serco share price dips as investors back rights issue April 17, 2015 Some good news for Serco: the troubled outsourcer said this morning its shareholders had largely supported a rights issue, with acceptances for 520m of 549m (that's 95 per cent) of new ordinary shares offered. The one-for-one rights issue, priced at 101p per new ordinary share, closed on Thursday. This morning, shares dipped 0.2 per cent to [...]
Adultery site Ashley Madison faces tough test wooing London bankers for its flotation plans April 16, 2015 It may boast sales of £77m, 36m members globally and a 45 per cent annual growth rate, but cheating spouses website Ashley Madison faces a tougher test to float in London than it expects. The saucy Toronto-based group, which allows married people to link up online for affairs, is weighing plans to raise $200m, but [...]
Etsy IPO: Online marketplace doubles in value on stock market debut April 16, 2015 Quirky online marketplace Etsy soared on its stock market debut yesterday, with shares popping from their listing price of $16 to a high of $34 a share, underscoring the ongoing love affair by investors for US tech stocks. The company, which allows vendors to sell handmade items, antiques and artisan craft products, priced shares at [...]
Eurocement bid to appoint new HolcimLafarge director rejected April 16, 2015 Swiss cement firm Holcim announced yesterday that it had turned down a proposal from major shareholder Eurocement for its founder Filaret Galchev to join the board of the new combined company it is creating with rival Lafarge. The companies announced the names of the candidates for the board of the new group earlier this week, [...]
Standard Chartered: Crisis has made firms over-sensitive to emerging risks April 16, 2015 Investors and businesses have over-reacted to the financial crisis, placing too much weight on emerging risks and not enough on economic opportunities, analysts at Standard Chartered said yesterday. Firms could be missing out because they see all possible risks as having enormous potential, rather than addressing them even-handedly. “While there are clearly risks today, businesses [...]