BEST OF THE BROKERS July 11, 2010 WILLIAM HILL Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) has upgraded William Hill to a “buy” rating and said it believes that the stock is high quality and at good value. Strong trends online and improvement in machines are key catalysts for 2010, according to BoAML, which said that execution risk is believed to be low. [...]
THE TIPSTER July 11, 2010 AFTER this column tipped a sell of dollar-Canadian dollar at C$1.0675 on Tuesday of last week, the loonie rallied hard against the greenback late in the week and dropped all the way down to C$1.0303 by Friday afternoon. The market has suddenly started to price in a possible interest rate hike in Canada following the [...]
Birds Eye and Findus in battle for Unilever arm July 4, 2010 FISH finger maker Birds Eye Iglo is set to go head to head with crispy pancake makers Findus Group in the final round of bidding for Unilever’s Italian frozen food arm. The Italian division was put on sale earlier this year, and final bids are due tomorrow. The final competition is thought to be between [...]
P&G increases its European market share June 24, 2010 PROCTER & Gamble, the maker of Gillette razors, said yesterday that new product ranges and cheaper versions of existing brands were boosting its market share in Europe in a particularly difficult economic climate for retailers. The world’s biggest consumer goods group has launched new automatic dishwasher and stain removal products over the last two years, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 23, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES NISSAN’S GHOSN TOPS JAPAN PAY LEAGUE Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn has taken top spot on a list of Japan’s best-paid executives after the carmaker revealed it paid its Brazil-born chief executive Y890m ($9.9m) last year. Nissan and other quoted Japanese companies are being forced to report the compensation of individual executives for the first [...]
Nielsen gears up for listing June 3, 2010 NIELSEN plans to raise up to $1.75bn (£1.2bn) in an initial public offering, becoming the latest private-equity backed company to sell shares into a fragile market. Nielsen is best known for its viewership ratings, which often determine the fate of TV shows. Its top 10 clients – who account for about 23 per cent of [...]
Regulators to look again at Unilever deal June 1, 2010 EUROPEAN Union regulators yesterday extended their probe of Unilever’s bid for Sara Lee Corp’s body care business after the Anglo-Dutch company refused to offer concessions to address competition concerns. European Union watchdogs have said they will need to carefully scrutinise the deal to buy Sara Lee’s personal care business as they fear it could give [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS May 31, 2010 UNILEVER UBS has upgraded its rating for Unilever from “neutral” to “buy” and said that since the start of April, Unilever has underperformed its US peers. UBS suspects partly this reflects investors seeing Unilever as a proxy for the Eurozone, yet it estimates Unilever ’s exposure to the Eurozone to be only marginally higher than [...]
Findus frozen out by bidders May 25, 2010 PRIVATE equity houses Permira and Lion Capital are emerging as front runners for Unilever’s Italian frozen food unit Findus as other bidders question its profitability, sources close to the situation said yesterday. Permira and Lion, which already run frozen food businesses, both put in offers for the Unilever unit on yesterday’s deadline for first round [...]
Blank on the long list for M&S chair May 16, 2010 HEADHUNTERS searching for a replacement to Sir Stuart Rose at Marks and Spencer have earmarked former Lloyds chairman Sir Victor Blank as a potential candidate to chair the board. JCA Group founder Jan Hall is currently putting together a long list of candidates ready for the board to whittle down. Other names that have been [...]