Glencore is in exclusive talks to buy Canadian grain giant Viterra March 19, 2012 COMMODITIES giant Glencore is close to a deal to buy Viterra, Canada’s biggest grain handler, according to a source familiar with the matter. Viterra and Glencore are still in talks on price, but a deal could be reached within days at a price above C$16 per share, said the source, who could not speak publicly [...]
KPMG called in to clear up the mess March 19, 2012 FRESH from its appointment to administrate MF Global UK, KPMG is back in the spotlight as the firm to come in and clean up the mess left by the collapse of WorldSpreads. The two cases both involved alleged mixing of client and company money, but while MF Global was a huge multinational broker, WorldSpreads is a relatively [...]
Carlyle in key European hire March 19, 2012 US private equity firm Carlyle Group has hired Alexander Pietruska as the European head of its financial services group as it looks to grow its activities in the region. Pietruska will be based in London and begin his role as managing director and European head of Global Financial Services Partners in early April, the company [...]
Man chief exec sees pay drop March 19, 2012 THE CHIEF executive of Man Group was awarded a package of nearly $7m (£4.4m) for last year but missed out on another $14m after the hedge fund suffered during several years of market turmoil. Peter Clarke’s package for 2011 included a $2.9m salary, bonus and share award and a deferred three-year incentive award which could [...]
Profits fail to rise at owner of Hovis bread March 19, 2012 PREMIER Foods, the owner of brands including Batchelors soup and Hovis bread, has admitted that it will be forced to sell more assets as part of an enormous debt restructuring plan. Britain’s biggest food manufacturer says it will focus on its core businesses as it struggles to deal with a £1bn debt pile which built [...]
Sprint slumps as analyst cites bankruptcy risk March 19, 2012 SHARES in Sprint Nextel fell 4.5 per cent yesterday after an analyst report said there is an increasing risk that the US mobile provider could end up filing for bankruptcy in the next five years. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett downgraded Sprint shares to “underperform” from “market-perform” saying that the company will face “new and larger [...]
Public lost taste for food brands March 19, 2012 Premier Foods may have spent a lot of dough on Hovis but it has proved to be a major drag on the firm’s profits. Its 2007 purchase of arch-rival Rank Hovis McDougall, the then-owner of the iconic bread brand, for £1.2bn in a debt-laden transaction, now seems typical of the overly-optimistic deals that preceded the credit [...]
BBC’s Mark Thompson to leave after the Olympics March 19, 2012 THE BBC has stepped up its search to find the next director general after Mark Thompson confirmed yesterday he will leave the corporation in the autumn after the Olympics. Thompson, who has been in the job since 2004, told BBC Trust chairman Lord Patten of his departure in a meeting yesterday and said that the [...]
Amazon buys robot-maker March 19, 2012 Amazon said yesterday it has agreed to buy Kiva Systems for $775m (£488m) in cash, a deal that will bring more robotic technology to the e-commerce company’s giant network of warehouses. The acquisition, which has been approved by Kiva’s stockholders, is expected to close in the second quarter of 2012, Amazon added in a statement. [...]
Revenue growth slows at Adobe March 19, 2012 Adobe, maker of Photoshop and Acrobat software, said yesterday that revenue growth has slowed as sales of its widely used Creative Suite software fell, missing its forecasts, ahead of widely anticipated product launches this quarter. Revenue rose 1.7 per cent to $1.045bn (£657m) in its quarter ended 2 March. Sales at the digital media unit [...]