AngloGold slashes spending amid crippling mine strikes November 8, 2012 SOUTH AFRICAN gold miner AngloGold Ashanti yesterday said it had cut its spending budget for this year, to shore up its balance sheet in the wake of strikes that have crippled much of the country’s mining industry. The miner will reduce its capital expenditure budget by $200m (£125m) to between $2bn and $2.1bn. It will [...]
Negative cash flow at EADS as production costs increase November 8, 2012 EADS ramped up spending on several key infrastructure projects this year, resulting in negative cash flow of €3.2bn (£2.55bn) over the nine months to September. The aerospace and defence firm has invested in the production of several capital intensive projects at subsidiaries Airbus and Eurocopter, which led its cash flow to drop from a positive [...]
Talvivaara reports quarterly loss November 8, 2012 Finnish miner Talvivaara slumped to a third quarter loss of €4.3m (£3.4m) it said yesterday, down from a €5.5m profit the year before, as the company battled issues at its Sotkamo mine. Talvivaara’s output has been hit by heavy rainfall this year, and last week it had to shut the Sotkamo plant due to a [...]
Profit slumps 29pc at Shanks November 8, 2012 Underlying pre-tax profit at waste management group Shanks fell 29 per cent in the six months to September. Profits came in at £14.3m, down from £20.2m in the previous year, hurt by a deterioration in recession-hit solid waste markets in the UK and Netherlands and record lows in construction output.
Sandy hits United Continental November 8, 2012 United Continental, the world’s largest air carrier, said disruptions to operations because of superstorm Sandy reduced revenue and profit in October. United, which operates a hub at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, said that Sandy hurt revenue by about $90m and profit by about $35m in October.
Opec admits shale supplies will hit demand for its members’ oil November 8, 2012 OPEC acknowledged for the first time yesterday that technology for extracting oil and gas from shale is changing the global supply picture significantly, and said demand for crude would rise more slowly than it had previously expected. In its annual World Oil Outlook, Opec (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) cut its forecast of global [...]
Who’s switching jobs November 8, 2012 Houlihan Lokey Sascha Kroissenbrunner has been appointed director in the investment bank’s industrials group. He joins from UniCredit Group in Vienna, where he was managing director and head of the general industrials group for central and eastern Europe. He has also held senior positions at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London and Frankfurt. State [...]
Best of the Brokers November 8, 2012 IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES UBS has upgraded the chipmaker from “sell” to “neutral” with a 480p target. The broker sees the firm’s purchase of rival MIPS as positive, but generating returns could prove difficult. RWE Morgan Stanley rates the German owner of Npower “overweight” with a €40 target. The broker thinks RWE’s cost cutting is adding to [...]
Bank of England opts against more stimulus November 8, 2012 The Bank of England refrained from pumping more cash into the economy today, leaving the current stimulus programme at £375bn. The decision to hold quantitative easing is likely to have been close, with rate setters weighing up the UK’s GDP growth in the third quarter against signs of renewed weakness since then. It is understood [...]
Balfour Beatty warns on profits November 8, 2012 Infrastructure company Balfour Beatty this morning issued a profit warning, weighed down by weak construction service trading. The FTSE 250 firm said difficult trading conditions had persisted in its construction services division, which accounts for around 30 per cent of Balfour’s business. As a result, profits for this year will be lower than expected, it [...]