CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 8, 2012 Innis & Gunn Innis & Gunn, the independent brewer, has recruited David Cockburn as chief financial officer and a member of the board. Before moving to Innis & Gunn, David spent 19 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers and, latterly, Grant Thornton, where he was made a partner in 2006. Cockburn specialised in corporate finance and was involved [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 8, 2012 GROUPE EUROTUNNEL Morgan Stanley downgrades the channel tunnel operator to “equal-weight” from over-weight, with a target price of €4.70 (£3.88) after a circa 30 per cent drop in its share price from its peak. The broker cites a weaker macro outlook and change in the market’s approach on valuation for the fall, and says that [...]
US jobless rate falls January 6, 2012 US employment grew solidly last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, offering the strongest evidence yet of an acceleration in economic activity. Nonfarm payrolls increased 200,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, the most in three months and way above economists’ expectations for a 150,000 [...]
FTSE steady as investors eye US jobs data January 6, 2012 The FTSE 100 was steady in early trading with media and telecoms gains offsetting weak financial services and retail sectors. Investors were focusing on US jobs data out later while the Eurozone debt crisis continued to dampen sentiment. Analysts’ fears that Eurozone countries and banks could struggle to tap markets for capital this year continue [...]
House prices fall in December January 6, 2012 House prices fell 0.9 per cent on the month in December, mortgage lender Halifax said, confounding expectations of a modest pick-up. House prices fell 1.3 per cent in the three months to December versus a year ago, a bigger decline than the 0.8 per cent drop forecast by analysts. The average price of a home [...]
Blacks Leisure heads for prepack administration January 6, 2012 Blacks Leisure has it is to temporarily to enter administration ahead of a takeover deal. The prepack arrangement will wipe out the value of existing shares, which have now been suspended from trading on the London Stock Exchange. The retailer said it was mulling offers for the business and that a deal was likely to [...]
Woodford to sue Olympus for unfair dismissal January 6, 2012 The ousted British CEO of Olympus Corp, who blew the whistle on a $1.7BN accounting fraud, dropped his bid to return to the medical device maker, blaming cozy ties between its scandal-tainted management and big Japanese shareholders and saying the saga had taken its toll on his family. Michael Woodford’s campaign against its management rocked [...]
Euro woes return with a vengeance January 5, 2012 EUROPEAN banks were caught in a wave of new anxiety yesterday as doubts over capital-raising plans and Hungary’s solvency caused investors to drop stock in the continent’s major lenders. Shares in UniCredit, Italy’s biggest bank, dropped 17.3 per cent to their lowest level since 1985 as markets fret over its heavily discounted rights issue, which [...]
Better data from UK and US provides some cheer January 5, 2012 WOE in the Eurozone was offset by a wave of promising economic data from the UK and the US yesterday. The UK’s biggest sector – services – ended last year on a “surprisingly buoyant” note, new research said, while America’s efforts to heal its ailing jobs market showed signs of progress. The US private sector [...]
And then there were none: Shell shuts pension scheme January 5, 2012 FINAL salary pensions in the private sector moved closer to extinction yesterday, after Royal Dutch Shell announced plans to close its scheme to new members. The oil giant became the final company in the FTSE 100 to abandon its final salary pension, after it said new members would be unable to join from the first [...]