Founder of Jagex made £75m in sale January 8, 2012 Andrew Gower, the Cambridge boy who founded computer gaming firm Jagex with his brother in the late 1990s, pocketed £75m last year when private equity firm Insight Venture Partners bought his one-third stake in the online games company. The deal took place in February 2011 when Insight Venture Partners upped their 35 per cent investment, [...]
Company fraud grows 50 per cent to hit a record £2bn, says new report January 8, 2012 COMPANY fraud hit £2bn for the first time in 2011 – up 50 per cent on the previous year – a survey published today reveals. The 2011 FraudTrack report by accountants BDO – which collates data from all reported fraud cases over £50,000 – shows a dramatic rise in both the number and average value [...]
Iran close to enriching uranium, says official January 8, 2012 IRAN will in the “near future” start enriching uranium deep inside a mountain, a senior official said, a move likely to further antagonise Western powers which suspect Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons capability. A decision by the Islamic Republic to conduct sensitive atomic activities at an underground site – offering better protection against any enemy [...]
Eurozone New Year is dawn of the living dead January 8, 2012 SO we’re up and running. 2012 is fully underway and here I am with the same question I had in January last year. We’ve always presumed that whatever happens to the Eurozone, one way or another Northern Europe – specifically Germany – would eventually have to pay for it. What’s never been clearly answered is [...]
MEET THE ADVISERS: January 8, 2012 GUY PETERS SEYMOUR PIERCE Belvoir’s nominated advisory team is being led by Guy Peters, managing director of corporate finance at the investment bank Seymour Pierce. A qualified solicitor, Peters moved into investment banking in 1989, working at Arbuthnot Securities for a decade before joining Shore Capital in 2004. There he acted for the team running [...]
Novartis takes $120m hit with product recall January 8, 2012 NOVARTIS’S consumer health unit will take a $120m (£78m) hit in the fourth quarter after the Swiss drugmaker decided to voluntarily recall some products in the United States and move to improve quality standards at manufacturing sites. Novartis said in a statement yesterday that operations and shipments had been temporarily stopped at the Novartis Consumer [...]
Low-budget horror tops US movies January 8, 2012 Low-budget horror movie The Devil Inside topped the weekend box office with a surprising $34.5m in US and Canadian ticket sales, according to studio estimates released yesterday. The strong performance for Devil knocked Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol to second place. The fourth movie in the action franchise brought in an estimated $20.5m [...]
Israel vows to fight hacking January 8, 2012 Israel has promised to hit back after the online publication of thousands of its citizens’ credit card details by a hacker who says he is based in Saudi Arabia. It compared the attack to terrorism. The data theft, which appeared to focus on commercial websites, was one of the worst Israel has said it has [...]
SIR PAUL RUDDOCK DEFENDS HIS HONOUR January 8, 2012 Sir Paul Ruddock, the hedge fund manager caught up in controversy after he was awarded a knighthood, has defended his honour and said his award was for helping revive the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. The Lansdowne Partners co-founder was criticised for also being a Tory donor.
Venezuela ignores World Bank rule on Exxon case January 8, 2012 VENEZUALAN president Hugo Chavez said yesterday that his country would not recognise a ruling by a World Bank tribunal in a multibillion-dollar arbitration case with Exxon Mobil. Exxon took Venezuela to the World Bank’s International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID, seeking as much as $12bn (£7.8bn) in compensation after Chavez ordered the [...]