O’Brien stalls INM debt talks June 25, 2009 INDEPENDENT News and Media’s (INM) second largest shareholder, Denis O’Brien, has told the company’s board he will not support a proposal to refinance its €200m (£170m) bond which was due for payment today. Sources close to O’Brien said the Irish businessman is still fully behind the publisher, which owns The Independent and The Independent on [...]
Bank of America exceeds $33.9bn capital cushion June 25, 2009 Bank of America yesterday said it has built more than the $33.9bn (£20.7bn) capital cushion demanded by federal regulators. The bank said it exceeded the buffer by conducting an exchange offer under which it expects to issue 200m shares. In total, it has completed exchanges of $14.7bn in preferred stock for common equity, adding to [...]
DSG warns of further tough times ahead June 25, 2009 DSG INTERNATIONAL, the owner of electrical goods chains Dixons, Currys and PC World, yesterday posted its second annual loss and warned the economic gloom shows no sign of easing over the coming year. DSG chief executive John Browett said current internal forecasts at the firm assume there will be no upturn in the UK economy [...]
Iata: airline traffic has bottomed June 25, 2009 DEMAND for air travel seemed to hit a floor last month, industry body the International Air Transport Association (Iata) said yesterday, while still reporting a decline in air traffic from the previous year. Passenger demand slumped 9.3 per cent year-on-year in May, while freight demand dropped 17.4 per cent, a relative improvement compared to the [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 25, 2009 DLA Piper The law firm has elected Janet Legrand, an 18-year veteran of the firm, as senior partner. Legrand succeeds Peter Wayte, who retires at the end of June. She joined the firm in 1991 and specialises in commercial litigation. Her most recent high-profile cases include completing successful anti-corruption proceedings on behalf of the government [...]
Stalemate for mining giants Xstrata and Anglo American June 25, 2009 A TIE-UP between Xtrata and Anglo American “remains unattractive for Anglo shareholders,” sources familiar with the talks said yesterday, a day after Xstrata published details of the merger in a bid to convince shareholders of the merits of the deal. “The Anglo board has firmly rebuffed Xstrata’s proposal,” one industry expert added. Xstrata upped the [...]
HAPPY RETURN FOR BIRTHDAYS June 25, 2009 CLINTON Cards, the greeting card chain, has bought up 196 Birthdays stores a month after it put the business into administration. Under the terms of the deal, which will save around 1,450 jobs, Clintons will discharge £3.25m of the debt owed to it by Birthdays. It will pay a further £0.25m in cash to administrator [...]
Record start at StanChart June 25, 2009 STANDARD Chartered has enjoyed record income and pre-tax operating profit so far this year, the bank said yesterday in a trading update, as it announced it had cut 2,500 jobs. The bank, which focuses on emerging markets, said income growth had been boosted by a strong performance in wholesale banking, although income in consumer banking [...]
Steelmaker Corus to cut 2,000 British jobs as demand nosedives June 25, 2009 Europe’s second largest steelmaker Corus said yesterday it was planning to cut a further 1,922 jobs in Britain’s industrial heartlands, alongside axing another 123 staff in the Netherlands. Of the jobs to be cut in Britain, some 800 will go from Corus’ engineering steel sites in the northern English towns of Rotherham and Stocksbridge, while [...]
Svanberg of Ericsson will be BP’s chair June 25, 2009 BP named Ericsson chief executive Carl-Henric Svanberg as its new chairman yesterday, in a surprise appointment which ended the British oil major’s lengthy search for a successor to Peter Sutherland. BP chief executive Tony Hayward said the firm would benefit from Swedish Svanberg’s experience in emerging markets and in dealing with governments. Svanberg, who will [...]