CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS March 15, 2012 Shore Capital The independent investment group has appointed Christian Yates as senior adviser within its asset management division. Yates was previously a partner at Hazel Capital, the specialist cleantech investment manager, where he established a renewable energy infrastructure business. Yates has over twenty years in the fund management industry and has held senior positions at [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS March 15, 2012 PETROFAC Citigroup has downgraded the oil explorer to “neutral” and has raised its target price from £16.50 to £18.50. The broker expects the firm to spread to more regions in the coming year and win approximately $6bn of new work. While the firm is trading at a ten per cent discount to the sector on [...]
DON’T JOIN IN GOLDMAN TAUNTING, SAYS DIMON March 15, 2012 In the Capitalist’s experience, investment bankers are generally only too willing to pounce on their rivals’ bad fortune, especially when the bank in question happens to be the one they all love to hate, Goldman Sachs. But yesterday JP Morgan Chase’s chief executive Jamie Dimon urged employees of his bank not to take advantage of [...]
EVOLUTION’S GRIFFITH HEADS TOWARDS ORIEL March 15, 2012 It’s not all about cutbacks at Oriel Securities, the independent UK corporate and institutional stockbroker. Earlier this week it emerged that Oriel was trimming its staff by letting go of around 15 people but yesterday the firm showed that it is in hiring mode also. Oriel has taken on Richard Griffith, the former Evolution oil [...]
FTSE 100 slips after oil prices drop March 15, 2012 Britain’s leading share index slipped on Thursday, weighed down by weakness in heavyweight energy stocks after recent gains, with investors also looking ahead to futures and option expiries. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 4.71 points, or 0.1 per cent. BP shares dropped 1.26 per cent, while Cairn Energy shares fell 1.46 [...]
Cisco purchases NDS for $5bn March 15, 2012 Cisco Systems has reached a $5bn (£3.2bn) deal today to buy British digital video firm NDS, currently owned by a private equity firm Permira and News Corp. NDS offers technology used in BSkyB in its set-top box software, and would be one of Cisco’s biggest acquisitions. The purchase price of NDS was 35 per cent [...]
Ireland set to become oil producer March 15, 2012 Ireland may have discovered its first commercially viable oil well, 70km off the coast of southern Ireland. Providence Resources, operator of the Barryroe Well, reported today that it had found twice the amount of oil needed to hit the commercial target threshold. The company reported flow rates of nearly 3,500 barrels of oil per day, [...]
Sales drop at owner of Argos and Homebase March 15, 2012 Home Retail, the owner of Argos and Homebase, reported a big drop in sales in the eight weeks to 25 February, sending shares down 0.6 per cent. Argos sales decreased 8.5 per cent, while like-for-like sales at Homebase dropped 6.5 per cent, worse than the full year decline of 2 per cent. Despite this Home [...]
Lloyds to sell £1.4bn of Australian loans March 15, 2012 Lloyds Banking Group has started the sale of 2.1bn Australian dollars (£1.4bn) of non-performing loans on distressed property in Australia as the group seeks to wind down non-core assets, according to reports. The move is the second round of sales after the bank offloaded 1.7bn Australian dollars of distressed property loans to Morgan Stanley and [...]
Ratings agency Fitch places UK on negative outlook March 14, 2012 BIG government debts and a slower than expected economic recovery have seen the UK’s outlook slashed by another credit rating agency, in a major blow to chancellor George Osborne. Fitch announced last night that it was revising the UK’s outlook from stable to negative, one week ahead of the Budget – placing pressure on Osborne [...]