Citigroup quarterly profits falls

Citigroup today reported lower first-quarter profit on Monday as the bank worked to contain expenses in the face of volatile capital markets.

The New York-based lender said net income was $2.93bn (£1.85bn), compared with $2.99bn for the same period last year.

Revenue from its ongoing securities trading and investment banking declined 12 per cent from the strong quarter a year earlier, but rose 65 per cent from the weak 2011 fourth quarter.

“While the operating environment improved in the first quarter, there is still much macro uncertainty and we will continue to manage risk carefully,” chief executive Vikram Pandit said in a statement.

Nokia expects first-half losses

Mobile phone firm Nokia says it expects to make a loss during the first half of 2012, due to poor sales India, the Middle East and Africa and China and a decline in gross margins.

The firm had previously expected to be in profit during the first quarter. As a result shares in the Finnish firm were down more than 13 per cent.

It estimates that net sales of devices in the first quarter 2012 were €4.2bn, including mobile phone net sales of €2.3bn (71m units) and smart devices net sales of €1.7bn (12m units), and Devices & Services Other net sales of EUR 0.2 billion

“Nokia is quickly taking action. Nokia will continue to increase its focus on accelerating Lumia sales, as well as on lowering the company’s cost structure, improving cash flow and maintaining a strong financial position,” the firm said in a statement.

Nokia’s flagship Lumia range of phones has been hit by reports of software glitches in the latest model.

Dip in consumer morale dents recovery hopes

Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell to a three-month low in March as Britons grew increasingly worried about the outlook for their finances and for the economy as a whole, denting hopes of a consumer-fuelled recovery.

The headline consumer confidence index, based on a survey by GfK NOP, fell to -31 in March from -29 in February, the lowest since December and confounding expectations for a modest improvement to -28.

The figures will make worrying reading for the Bank of England, which had been hoping that a recovery in consumer demand later this year would help drive Britain’s economic recovery. They are also likely to reopen the debate over whether the central bank will need to inject more stimulus to boost growth.

The Bank of England is due to complete its latest bout of quantitative easing in May, rounding off 125 billion pounds of purchases since October.

Scottish and Southern Energy gas demand down 19 per cent

Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) has said they continue to expect a full-year dividend increase of at least 2 per cent more than RPI inflation to around 80p per share, despite a significant fall in customer fuel consumption.

Gas consumption is estimated to have fallen by 19 per cent, with electricity consumption also falling by 7 per cent.

The company hopes to deliver an increase in profit before tax for 2011/12 of a similar level to that of the last three years.

SSE chief executive Ian Marchant said: “The economic uncertainty and challenges of the global energy markets that have characterised recent years look set to continue for some time.”

Miner Polyus prepares for premium London listing

Russian miner Polyus Gold is likely go ahead with a share sale worth $700m
(£436m) to $1bn in late April, paving the way for a premium listing on the London Stock
Exchange, according to Reuters sources.

The company had originally planned to redomicile from its Jersey home to London in early March but has instead decided to create a new parent company necessary for it to obtain the free float required to gain inclusion into the index.

A final decision would depend on the UK Listing Authority’s terms set for a premium
listing, usually requiring a company’s free float to be 25 per cent. Polyus would need to
sell 10.5 per cent of its stock to hit that level.

If Polyus decides to go ahead it is likely make the public launch and placement of
shares in the last week of April.

French deficit lower than expected

France’s public deficit fell to 5.2 per cent of GDP in 2011, significantly below the government’s target of 5.7 per cent, statistics agency Insee has announced.

That is down from 7.1 per cent in 2010, thanks in part to the end of one-off spending measures.

Insee said public spending shrank last year, with tax returns rising to 43.8 per cent of GDP, up from 42.5 per cent in 2010.

The country remains on track to meet to meet its deficit goal of 4.5 per cent for the end of 2012, and hopes to fall below the European Union ceiling of 3 per cent by the end of 2013.

Royal Mail privatisation set for start of 2014

Royal Mail is readying for privatisation in the first quarter of 2014, according to chief executive Moya Greene.

“I don’t think that it is impossible that we could be in a deal mode in 2013, but personally I think it is probably more likely to be the first quarter in 2014. My preference and I believe the government’s preference is a float,” she told Reuters on Tuesday.

The news comes on the day that the postal service has been told it can set prices for most of the letters and parcels it delivers under a new seven year framework.

As a result from April 30 the price of a first class stamp will rise from 46p to 60p while a second class stamp will also rise 14p to 50p.

Royal Mail made a £41m operating loss on letters and parcels in the six months to September 25.

Mobile banking firm Monitise buys US rival for £108m

UK mobile banking technology firm Monitise has agreed to buy privately held US rival Clairmail for $173m (£108m), expanding its reach on the key North American market.

In the UK the firm currently provides mobile banking applications for customers of Natwest, Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC.

After the deal Monitise will reach 13m consumers on four continents, and serve a third of the top 50 North American financial institutions.

Financial services are seen as one of the major business opportunities in the wireless industry but so far has become big business only in a few countries as tight regulations and the lack of a business model have restricted wider take-up.

Jim Yong Kim announced as US nominee for World Bank head

The United States has picked Jim Yong Kim, a public health expert who is currently President of Ivy League Dartmouth College, to be its candidate for the World Bank presidency.

President Barack Obama announced the decision to the back Kim, who was born in South Korea but raised in Iowa, in a speech at the White House.

“It is time for a development professional to lead the world’s largest development agency,” Obama said flanked by Kim, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The United States has held the presidency since the bank’s inception after World War Two.

However it faces an unprecedented challenge to its grip on the World Bank presidency, with emerging economies poised to nominate at least one candidate on Friday to set up the first contested bid for the top job at the global development lender.

African powers Angola, Nigeria and South Africa today endorsed the nomination of Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a respected economist and diplomat.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs said he was withdrawing his nomination in support of Kim.

RBC buys Coutts units from Royal Bank of Scotland

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) will buy some overseas divisions of the Coutts private banking business from Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), giving RBC access to high net worth individuals in fast-growing emerging markets.

Canada’s largest bank is buying Coutts’ Latin American, Caribbean and African private banking arms, which managed around £1.5bn of assets, in line with RBC’s long-lived promise to build its global wealth management business.

“This business represents an excellent opportunity to increase our market share with high net worth and ultra high net worth clients in key high growth markets, while delivering very attractive returns,” said George Lewis, group head, RBC Wealth Management, in a statement.

For RBS, which is 82 per cent owned by the British government, the sale forms part of its program of selling noncore assets to focus more on its core UK retail banking business.

RBS said the sale was in line with Coutts’ strategy to focus on key markets such as the UK, Switzerland, Russia, the Middle East and Asia.