Barclays is selling its Italian retail banks to Mediobanca’s CheBanca! business December 3, 2015 Barclays is about to offload its Italian retail banking operations, the company announced today. It will sell its network of branches, amounting to 89 in total, to CheBanca! – a unit of Italian investment firm Mediobanca. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter of next year, and is part of Barclays' [...]
Ryanair and Wizz Air report jump in passenger numbers December 3, 2015 Budget airlines Ryanair and Wizz Air have both reported a healthy jump in passenger numbers for November. Traffic at Ryanair, which is part-way through its customer charm offensive dubbed "Always Getting Better", rose 21 per cent to 7.71m passengers, while its load factor rose five percentage points to 93 per cent. Rolling annual traffic to November rose [...]
French unemployment higher than expectations – and above Eurozone average for the first time since 2007 December 3, 2015 French unemployment has risen to 10.6 per cent in the third quarter – higher than forecast and the first time it has been higher than the Eurozone average since 2007. Unemployment had been expected to come in at 10.4 per cent, but figures from the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee) showed worse-than-expected [...]
China ramps up investment in Africa in return for greater access to commodities December 3, 2015 China and South Africa have entered into a series of business deals amounting to $6.5bn (£4.4bn), which will result in huge infrastructure projects taking place in South Africa. Yesterday, 26 deals were signed between the nations, with one of the biggest single deals involving South Africa's national rail operator, which received $2.5bn in investment. South [...]
Battle for the mobile privacy market heats up as Silent Circle moves into enterprise software December 3, 2015 In a bid to win a larger share of the secure communications market phone maker Silent Circle is moving into enterprise software. Silent Circle, which also makes the controversial Blackphone that has run into trouble due to unexpected demand from Islamic State militants, is shifting its focus from consumer products to supplying businesses and governments. [...]
Morrisons drops out as pharma boosts FTSE 100 – London Report December 3, 2015 The FTSE 100 index closed up last night, buoyed by pharmaceuticals that were given a boost from a Morgan Stanley note supporting AstraZeneca. The UK’s top blue-chip index closed up 0.4 per cent, at 6,420.93 points. Shire led the pack higher, closing 2.35 per cent up at 4,745p per share, while GlaxoSmithKline ended the session [...]
Cantor Fitzgerald, Investec, UBS: Best of the Brokers for 03 December 2015 December 3, 2015 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com Cantor Fitzgerald has remained a “seller” of Mothercare stock with a target price of 135p, despite the company more than doubling UK profits in the first half. It believes it will struggle to meet the lower end of management’s 2019 underlying pre-tax profit [...]
M&G chief explodes bombshell in pay debate December 3, 2015 Campaigners against high boardroom pay might balk at the notion of taking advice from a City grandee who landed a package worth £5.4m last year – but Michael McLintock is worth hearing out. McLintock, chief executive of the £250bn asset manager M&G Investments, has floated an idea whose explosiveness is only exacerbated by his status. During [...]
London house prices: Buyers need an average deposit of £179,248 December 3, 2015 The average down-payment for a house in London rose five per cent in October compared with September, according to new figures released by a mortgage broker today. Prospective London home buyers need to scrape together an average £179,248 for their deposit, the Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) said. The second biggest deposits are in the South East [...]
Fed rate hike: Index sharply lower after Janet Yellen remarks – New York Report December 2, 2015 Hawkish comments from Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen yesterday which boosted expectations of an interest rate hike pulled US stocks sharply lower. Investors also attributed late-day selling to news coverage of a shooting in southern California, in which 12 people are said to have been killed . The Dow Jones industrial average fell 158.67 points, [...]