COSMENS UP NATEXP STAKE AGAIN November 24, 2009 National Express’s biggest shareholders, Spain’s Cosmen family, have stepped up their efforts to block the bus and rail company’s £360m rights issue by again raising their stake in the firm. The family has spent about £5.84m in three share deals over three days to raise their stake from 18.5 per cent to 19.72 per cent.
WestLB wins a rescue deal November 24, 2009 STRICKEN German state-backed lender WestLB yesterday secured last-minute rescue financing, allowing it to offload around €85bn (£76.7bn) of risky assets by recapitalising and creating the country’s first “bad bank”. A German Finance Ministry spokesman said a deal had been reached to recapitalise a core, healthy bank that will be separate from the bad bank, just [...]
PARAGON TO RESUME NEW LENDING November 24, 2009 Buy-to-let lender Paragon has said it is becoming more confident of resuming lending to new customers as it reported an annual pre-tax profit £54.3m. The group has not lent to new mortgage borrowers since February last year.
Alliance Trust turns to equities November 24, 2009 INVESTMENT company Alliance Trust said it remains “cautiously optimistic” about its prospects as it pumped up its exposure to equities. The firm increased its exposure to equities to 90.6 per cent in the three months to October 31 with a focus on stocks that will benefit from an upturn in economic activity. BP, HSBC, Rio [...]
King: Deficit must be cut more rapidly November 24, 2009 BRITAIN’S next government will need a credible plan to reduce the country’s structural deficit over the lifetime of just one parliamentary term, Bank of England governor Mervyn King warned yesterday. Testifying in front of the Treasury Select Committee, King said: “I don’t think there’s any immediate risk, but the longer there isn’t a credible plan [...]
Banks report mortgage approvals at two-year high November 24, 2009 THE number of new mortgages approved by the main banks rose to its highest level for nearly two years in October. The British Bankers’ Association said 42,238 loans were approved last month – nearly double the number seen last October at the height of the crisis. This was a slight increase on the September figure [...]
Investment by business falls November 24, 2009 BUSINESS investment in Britain fell three per cent between July and September compared with the previous three months, according to official data released yesterday. The Office for National Statistics said investment was 21.7 per cent lower compared with the same period last year at £28.393bn. The third quarter spending drop by companies, for goods ranging [...]
Germany sees output growth November 24, 2009 A RISE in output helped German manufacturing activity expand for the second month running in November, driving an increase in private sector growth in Europe’s largest economy, a survey showed yesterday. A flash estimate of the Markit composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which surveys the services and manufacturing sectors, showed growth for the fourth month [...]
Supermarkets and food staples have a family feel November 24, 2009 BrandIndex asks general questions about brands, but sometimes it’s useful to look at more specific qualities. YouGov recently conducted research on the associations between brands and family values. The recent Family Brands report, conducted for advertising agency Isobel, suggests that association with family values is a useful differential by which we can measure different types [...]
Keep your festive drinking in control November 23, 2009 ONE MINUTE we’re told that drinking alcohol in any quantity is bad for us; the next it appears that red wine is like mother’s milk and should be consumed with gay abandon. Only last week a Spanish study commissioned by the Basque Public Health Department was published, saying that men who drank up to 11 [...]
