Dubai Duty Free picks banks for $1.1bn loan deal April 9, 2012 AIRPORT retailer Dubai Duty Free has mandated banks for a $1.1bn (£692m) multi-tranche loan facility to help fund the expansion of Dubai’s international airport, the company said in a statement yesterday. Citibank along with Dubai Islamic, HSBC and Emirates NBD have been hired to arrange and coordinate the debut international transaction, the company said in [...]
KSL Corp has another bite at Great Wolf April 9, 2012 PRIVATE equity firm KSL Corp has raised its bid for Great Wolf Resorts by 12 per cent to $234m (£147m) as it works to top rival buyout group Apollo Global Management in their battle to acquire North America’s largest operator of indoor water parks. Great Wolf said it had received an unsolicited letter from KSL [...]
Mervyn’s magical money machine April 9, 2012 ROBERT Chote, chief of the Office of Budgetary Responsibility, recently revealed his – and the Treasury’s – favoured means of estimating the chances of a Eurozone breakup: looking up the odds on William Hill (it’s a 1/5 shot against, by the way). But there is another burning question on bankers’ lips: who is going to [...]
MY SUBWAY’S BIGGER THAN YOURS April 9, 2012 THEY might look like webs woven by confused spiders, but these strange squiggles are in fact to-scale maps of subways systems in global cities, as drawn by graphic artist Neil Freeman. But can you guess which name matches which scribble? London, second from the left, and New York, to its right, should be easy. And [...]
OLYMPIC MEDIA BUZZ LONDON 2012 PARTNERS April 9, 2012 IN ASSOCIATION with Repskan.com, City A.M. is measuring the relative Olympic media buzz around the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games partners, week by week. The leaderboard, right, reflects their ranking over the past week, in this case from Wednesday 28 March to Wednesday 4 April. British Airways has had a bumper Olympic news week, [...]
Japan returns to surplus as exports surge April 9, 2012 STRONG demand from a resurgent US boosted Japan’s economy in February, official data showed yesterday. The country’s current account balance swung back into surplus as exports jumped and gains from overseas investments reversed the record deficit registered in February. The surplus came in at ¥1.78 trillion (£13.7bn) according to finance ministry data – the strongest [...]
London leads UK recovery, but large retailers drag on growth April 9, 2012 THE ECONOMY is growing once more – and London led the recovery in the first quarter, influential survey data showed yesterday. However, other indicators pointed to weakness in some parts of the UK, with increasing numbers of retailers entering administration in the first three months of the year. Every English region except the north east [...]
Price jump hits hopes of easy money in China April 9, 2012 CONSUMER prices in China rose more sharply than expected in March, official figures showed yesterday, raising fears that the authorities may have less room than hoped to stimulate economic growth through lower interest rates. Inflation jumped to 3.6 per cent in the year to March, up from 3.2 per cent a month earlier and representing [...]
Black market booze, cigarettes and diesel lose taxman £30bn April 9, 2012 HIGHER taxes may boost the black market, a pressure group claimed yesterday as figures revealed the Treasury loses tens of billions of pounds from illicit sales of alcohol, tobacco and fuel. The government lost out to the tune of £28.5bn from illegal sales between 2005-06 and 2009-10, figures from the Taxpayers’ Alliance showed. The group [...]
Rise in hiring as economy starts growing April 9, 2012 JOB vacancies in the UK rose at their fastest rate since November 2008 last month, led by a boom in IT hiring, according to data out today from an online recruiter. Opportunities rose eight per cent over the year to March, the Monster Employment Index showed, with IT vacancies up 25 per cent to their [...]