Adecco plans share buyback June 26, 2012 Adecco will buy back up to €400m (£319.5m) of shares from mid-July, the world’s largest staffing company said yesterday. Adecco, which has a market capitalisation of about £4.6bn, said it would fund the share buyback in the debt capital market and was planning to issue bonds in the near future, subject to market conditions. The [...]
Porvair raises profit forecasts June 26, 2012 Filtration and environmental technology firm Porvair yesterday raised its earnings expectations as profits shot up by 48 per cent in the first half of the year. Pre-tax profits at the firm were £2.4m in the six months to 31 May. Porvair expects the coming six months to be helped by a strong order book and [...]
Squeezed middle most affected by falling incomes, figures show June 26, 2012 THE MIDDLE fifth of households experienced the sharpest drop in average incomes according to a recent year’s data published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Disposable incomes flopped by an average of 4.3 per cent for the so called squeezed middle between 2009-10 and 2010-11 – a fall of £1,100 per household. Across [...]
UK heading for time bomb over housing benefit June 26, 2012 LOWER rates of home ownership are set to cost the government an extra £8bn a year in housing benefit, a think-tank said this morning. Once today’s generation of renters retire, there will be 3.45m pensioners claiming housing benefit by 2060, the Strategic Society Centre (SSC) has calculated. In today’s prices, these claimants will cost the [...]
Third month of US home rises… June 26, 2012 US HOUSE prices rose again in April, while consumer confidence dipped further, according to data published yesterday. The S&P/Case-Shiller house price index rose 0.7 per cent in April, marking the third consecutive month of gains. Prices are still down 1.9 per cent on the year, but this beats the 2.6 per cent fall in the [...]
…as OECD calls for work plan June 26, 2012 THE LONG spells many Americans are spending without work risk leaving a lasting scar of higher unemployment on the US economy, the OECD warned yesterday. In its biennial report on the US economy, the OECD said the unemployment rate which the economy could sustain without generating inflation was 6.1 per cent, up from 5.7 per [...]
WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 26, 2012 Mayer Brown Andrew Block has been appointed as a partner in the pensions group of the law firm. He was previously a partner at Travers Smith, and started his legal career at Linklaters. Block acts in occupational pension scheme matters. He will be based in Mayer Brown’s London office. Manches The law firm has announced [...]
BEST of the BROKERS June 26, 2012 SHIRE Societe Generale has upgraded the pharmaceutical giant from “hold” to “buy” with a reduced target price of 2,192p from the previous 2,310p. Despite the US regulator approving a generic competitor for the company’s Adderall XR drug last week, the broker does not expect multiple generics to be approved from here, so continues to see [...]
RBS computer woes could last weeks June 26, 2012 RBS could be dealing with the effects of the latest backlog of customers’ transactions for several weeks, the Financial Ombudsman Service said after it received around 500 calls from irate RBS customers. Customers’ transactions from RBS, NatWest and Ireland’s Ulster Bank have been delayed because of a software update failure last week. According to RBS, [...]
Government scraps fuel duty rise June 26, 2012 Chancellor George Osborne sai he would freeze a planned rise in fuel duty this year to help reduce costs for businesses and families. “We will now stop any rise in fuel duty this August and freeze it for the rest of the year,” Osborne told parliament. Fuel duty was due to rise by three pence [...]