On-form Anderson is a matchwinner July 29, 2009 ENGLAND have a golden opportunity to take a huge step towards reclaiming the Ashes in the third Test at Edgbaston, starting today. Victory would put Andrew Strauss’s men 2-0 up overall, and they would then be confident of batting out for a series-clinching draw at either Headingley or The Oval. This ground usually produces a [...]
MICROSOFT HITS BACK AT GOOGLE July 29, 2009 SOFTWARE giant Microsoft yesterday sealed a global search advertising deal with internet giant Yahoo, ending a 19-month courtship and launching its next assault on Google’s market dominance. Under the freshly-drafted 10-year agreement, Microsoft’s Bing search engine – launched in June – will power search queries on Yahoo’s sites, while Yahoo will provide the search-advertising sales [...]
Reed share placing to be unveiled July 29, 2009 BUSINESS and scientific magazine publisher Reed Elsevier is today expected to announce plans for a huge rights issue, as it attempts to reduce its $8.3bn (£5.1bn) debt-pile. The Anglo-Dutch company’s new chief executive, Ian Smith, will unveil plans to raise up to 10 per cent of its value through a share placing, as he announces [...]
UK firms pay back debts July 29, 2009 BRITISH companies are paying down bank loans at a record rate, using the proceeds from a surge in capital markets fund-raising, Bank of England data revealed yesterday. In the second quarter, British private non-financial companies paid off a net £15bn, including £3.6bn in June alone. They raised £21bn from the debt and equity markets. So [...]
Poor the great losers from our fiscal folly July 29, 2009 HERE is a disturbing fact you won’t have read anywhere else: the poorest families in Britain today pay a greater proportion of their income in tax than the wealthiest. Such a claim may sound crazy but here are the figures: the bottom fifth of earners pay 38.7 of their gross income in total tax, the [...]
Mortgage approvals rise July 29, 2009 MORTGAGE approvals jumped in June to their highest level in more than a year but consumer lending remained very weak, recording the smallest rise on record, according to Bank of England data released yesterday. The Bank of England said that home loan approvals for new house purchase rose to 47,584 from 44,169 in May, which [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 29, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES CATTLES’ NON-EXECS WIN TEPID SUPPORTLong-suffering investors in cattles, whose shares have been suspended since April, protested yesterday against the re-election of two non-executive directors at the subprime lender’s annual meeting. About a tenth of investors voted against the re-election of David Haxby, senior independent director who has been with the board since 1999, [...]
AmEx redeems Tarp warrants July 29, 2009 American Express has paid the US Treasury $340m (£208m) to redeem warrants given to the government as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Tarp). The credit card firm bought back $3.39bn in preferred shares issued to the government under Tarp last month. It said the cost of buying back warrants to purchase 24.3m shares, [...]
Temasek unveils 17bn loss July 29, 2009 Singapore state investor Temasek revealed yesterday that the value of its portfolio slid by at least $27bn (£16.5bn), or more than a fifth, in the 12 months ending in March. But the sovereign wealth fund, which made an estimated loss of £800m when it sold its stake in Barclays earlier this year, said it will [...]
US economy slows its slide July 29, 2009 THE Federal Reserve said yesterday the pace of the recession has stabilised in most areas of the US, in a report that pointed to protracted job market weakness even as the economy transitions to recovery. Labour markets across the country were “extremely soft,” with little upward pressure on wages, the Fed said in its Beige [...]
