Faroe awarded Norway licences January 18, 2012 Faroe Petroleum has won seven new prospective exploration licences on the Norwegian continental shelf. The Aberdeen-based company said the awards demonstrated its growing ambitions for exploration in Norway. The new licences were granted under the 2011 Norwegian licence round. Faroe Petroleum focuses on exploration and production opportunities in the Atlantic margin, the North Sea and [...]
Wetherspoon margins hit by VAT costs January 18, 2012 JD WETHERSPOON reported better-than-expected sales in the Christmas period but its chairman Tim Martin called on the chancellor to rethink “punishing” tax increases levied on the pub sector. Martin said the company is still on course to open around 50 pubs in the current financial year but warned that it may scale back future expansion [...]
City’s lawyers see rise in pay and bonuses January 18, 2012 CITY lawyers enjoyed an average increase of almost £10,000 on annual bonuses last year, up 25 per cent from the previous year, according to research out this morning from legal recruiter Laurence Simons. The 2011 average was £35,500 – up from £26,500 in 2010. However, the number of lawyers who received a bonus fell last [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: HOW HAS WETHERSPOON FARED AGAINST RISING COSTS? January 18, 2012 PATRICK COFFEY | LIBERUM CAPITAL Despite JD Wetherspoon’s investment for the future, we believe the company’s valuation is inconsistent with a sector under pressure from rising costs and macro-uncertainty… We reiterate our “sell” recommendation. PAUL HICKMAN | PEEL HUNT Posting a good second quarter result shows Wetherspoon robustly on course for our modest earnings growth [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 18, 2012 Aberdeen Asset Management Peter Elston, an Asian investment strategist based in Singapore, has been promoted to the newly created role of head of Asia Pacific strategy and asset allocation. Elston has been a member of the global strategy team and the Asia Pacific multi-asset fund tactical asset allocation team since 2009. He joined Aberdeen as [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 18, 2012 ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND Goldman Sachs rates the bank “neutral” and has raised its target price from 25p to 30p. The broker thinks the plans to restructure RBS Global Banking and Markets could hit earnings per share by six per cent, but raise returns on equity by 1.2 per cent by 2014. But it notes [...]
City wins court battle to evict St Paul’s protesters January 18, 2012 The City of London Corporation has won its High Court bid to evict protesters from outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The demonstrators have been occupying the site since 15 October when they set up tents in the shadow of the historic building. The corporation applied for a possession order after the Occupy London group ignored an [...]
Goldman Sachs cuts pay as profits plunge 56pc January 18, 2012 Goldman Sachs has been forced to slash pay as the turmoil engulfing the banking industry slammed revenues last year. The bank has announced a 56 per cent fall in fourth quarter profits, earning only $978m (£636m) compared to $2.2bn (£1.4bn) for the same period last year. The earnings report still beat analysts predictions, causing shares [...]
Portuguese bond yields drop January 18, 2012 Portugal has sold €2.5bn (£2.08bn) of short term debt at lower yields than the last equivalent issue. Half the debt was sold in the form of 11 month bonds at an average yield of 4.968 per cent. The last equivalent issue was on April 6 2011, when Portugal sold 12 month bonds at average return [...]
German growth hit by falling exports January 18, 2012 Germany will rely on domestic demand for growth in 2012 after announcing that exports will rise only 2 per cent as imports rise 3 per cent. As a result the Economy Ministry says it expects economic growth to slow to 0.7 per cent in 2012 before increasing to 1.6 per cent in 2013. It had [...]