Fiberweb loses finance chief January 3, 2012 Industrial materials group Fiberweb said its finance chief, Daniel Abrams, will be leaving the group at the end of March 2012. Abrams has held the role since 2008, and prior to joining Fiberweb he was finance chief at Cambridge Display Technology and was finance director of Xenova Group. Replacing Abrams will be Kate Miles, currently [...]
Lonrho raises £25m for expansion January 3, 2012 London-listed Lonrho, which invests in infrastructure projects and other investments in Africa, said yesterday it had completed a £25.4m fundraising to bolster its war chest going into the new year.
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 3, 2012 Avanti Communications Group Paul Walsh, chief executive of Diageo, has joined the board of satellite data company Avanti Communications as a non-executive director. He is also a non-executive director of FedEx Corporation and Unilever. Prior to joining Diageo, Walsh held financial and commercial positions with InterContinental Hotels and in the GrandMet food business, becoming CEO [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 3, 2012 AFREN Brewin Dolphin rates the oil group “add” and has put its 128p target price under review following a group production update this week. The broker notes that Afren has underperformed on its original production targets for the year, though it beat its revised figures after ramping up work on its Nigerian project. But Brewin [...]
Surge in US construction and factory data at year-end January 3, 2012 US construction spending surged to nearly an 18-month high in November, new data shows, as investment in public and private projects rose solidly. Construction spending increased 1.2 per cent to an annual rate of $807.1bn (£520.4bn), the highest level since June 2010, the US Commerce Department has said. A separate report also shows that US [...]
Pair convicted for Lawrence murder January 3, 2012 Two men have been found guilty on of the racist murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, were convicted after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey that hinged on new scientific evidence presented by prosecutors. Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death at a London bus stop in April [...]
Commodities fuel FTSE gains January 3, 2012 The FTSE 100 was off to a positive start this morning led upwards by commodity stocks which were boosted by strong data from China. Asian markets were given a lift as the official Chinese purchasing managers’ index indicated a rise in factory activity in December and London followed suit. Industrial metals such as copper rose [...]
Manufacturing still weak but shows signs of stabilising January 3, 2012 Manufacturing beat expectations in December, showing signs of stabilising after a two-month decline as orders from China and Germany picked up, although the risk of another recession persists, a survey shows. The Markit/CIPS Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 49.6 from an upwardly revised 47.7 in November, data compiler Markit said on Tuesday. The [...]
BMW: Premium car market to grow 8pc in 2012 January 3, 2012 BMW expects the global premium car market to grow more than twice as fast as the overall auto market this year, the German carmaker’s finance chief told a German newspaper. “Around the world, we see market growth of four per cent and more than eight per cent in the premium market,” Friedrich Eichiner told Sueddeutsche [...]
Asian stocks rise fuelled by positive China data January 3, 2012 Asian stocks rose as the first trading day of 2012 in most markets brought renewed appetite for riskier assets, while US crude jumped more than 1.5 per cent to above $100 a barrel on escalating tensions between Iran and the West. Stronger-than-expected manufacturing data from China boosted sentiment in Asia, but Europe’s drawn-out debt crisis [...]