Barclays looks to combine all African units August 21, 2012 BARCLAYS is considering bringing all of its African operations under one structure by the middle of next year, it said yesterday. The bank is in talks with South Africa’s third-largest bank Absa about the move, and hopes to streamline operations in the continent. Barclays bought 55.5 per cent of Absa in 2005, but it is [...]
State-owned banks to flourish if ECB takes steps to ease crisis August 21, 2012 BRITISH banks have recovered strongly from the financial crisis, building up their balance sheets and improving credit quality, analysts at Liberum Capital believe. And if the Eurozone crisis starts to ease, banks like RBS and Lloyds should be well on track to rebuild capital and earnings levels, the researchers forecast yesterday. Pointing to European Central [...]
Citi loses three top analysts in the last month August 21, 2012 CITIGROUP is understood to have lost three of its leading European equities analysts in the last month, following yesterday’s confirmation that the bank’s head of insurance research has left the US firm. Raghu Hariharan has jumped ship to become director of investor relations at Prudential, one of the firms he covered in his old job. [...]
Johnston Press profits halve as ad revenue hit August 21, 2012 NEWSPAPER group Johnston Press saw profits cut in two in the first six months of the year as it was hit by falling advertising sales, the company reported yesterday. The publisher of papers including the Scotsman and the Yorkshire Post said pre-tax profits fell to £8m as it took in £13.9m less from advertising than [...]
Roll on 4G: Needless delay has been expensive for businesses August 21, 2012 IT WON’T work with your iPad 3; there’ll be no more London 2012 events to stream on your phone by then; and Facebook’s still rubbish on mobiles. Is the imminent appearance of 4G in the UK really something worth caring about? According to the numbers, yes. In October last year, a report from Open Digital [...]
Best Buy’s earnings slump lays bare size of new chief’s mission August 21, 2012 ELECTRONICS retailer Best Buy suspended its earnings forecast yesterday over uncertainty about its ability to continue to compete as the company posted a 91 per cent fall in profits in its second quarter. The American firm, which appointed a new chief executive and knocked back an approach from founder Richard Schulze on Monday, saw shares [...]
Internet crime dents retailers August 21, 2012 THE BOOM in Britons shopping online and through their mobile devices has left the retail sector more vulnerable than ever to internet crime, according to a report from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) published today. It claims that crimes such as phishing and identity fraud cost retailers an estimated £205.4m in 2011-12 and now poses [...]
Dell outlook disappoints August 21, 2012 DELL last night warned of a “challenging” second half as customers cut back on computer purchases in anticipation of the launch of Microsoft Windows 8 software late in 2012, sending its shares down three per cent. The American PC maker said revenues fell eight per cent to $14.5bn (£9.2bn), broadly as expected, but warned that [...]
CPP profits slump after FSA probe August 21, 2012 Shares in credit card protection firm CPP closed 23 per cent lower yesterday after the firm announced a 24 per cent drop in underlying pre-tax profits to £19.2m for the first half of 2012. The York-based company said it had said aside a further £7.5m to meet potential compensation claims relating to the ongoing Financial [...]
Moody’s downgrade Man Group August 21, 2012 Rating agency Moody’s yesterday followed the lead of equity analysts around the country and downgraded alternative fund manager Man Group following poor performance. The agency announced it had downgraded Man’s debt rating by one notch following the conclusion of a review started in April. It said the downgrade reflected the firm’s decline in assets under [...]
