Insurance firms face £500m bill after the wettest June on record July 18, 2012 INSURERS face a £500m bill to cover flood and storm damage in June, according to figures released yesterday. The Association of British Insurers (ABI) says its members expect to pay out the equivalent of £17m a day after the month beat rainfall records, flooding buildings and damaging vehicles. “During June alone insurers helped 68,000 customers hit [...]
Fuller’s sales watered down July 18, 2012 BREWER Fuller, Smith and Turner yesterday blamed poor weather over the summer for a decline in revenues, having expected a bumper period over the Diamond Jubilee and Euro 2012. Sales fell by 1.1 per cent in the 15 weeks to 14 July, the company reported, citing “the persistent rain”. Chairman Michael Turner remained optimistic ahead [...]
Aer Lingus snubs Ryanair July 18, 2012 IRISH flag carrier Aer Lingus yesterday urged shareholders to reject a takeover bid from Ryanair, its larger rival, saying the offer is “not credible”. Ryanair already owns 30 per cent of its rival and on Tuesday made an offer that values Aer Lingus at around €694m (£544m). Aer Lingus said any bid is likely to be blocked [...]
Nordea profit tops forecasts July 18, 2012 NORDIC banking group Nordea, the region’s biggest bank, posted second-quarter operating profits above expectations yesterday but said slower economic growth in the region due to Europe’s debt crisis was affecting business. Operating earnings in the second quarter were €1.1bn, compared with the €949m reported in the same period a year ago. Swedish banking group Swedbank [...]
Most Londoners still clueless about plans for Olympic traffic July 18, 2012 THE VAST majority of Londoners are still in the dark over how their routes around the City will be affected during the Olympics, according to research released today. Seventy-one per cent of Londoners asked said they did not know when Olympic road restrictions would start and finish, while 73 per cent were clueless as to [...]
CITY VIEWS | ARE YOU IN FAVOUR OF THE OLYMPIC LANES? July 18, 2012 SANJAY JAYAN SS&C TECHNOLOGIES I think the lanes themselves are a little excessive – one of my friends was fined recently for using one of them. I think it will be a big nuisance for people who use the roads to get to work on a daily basis; it’s difficult enough even on the Tube [...]
Virgin hints at casino banking with an arcade July 18, 2012 BRITAIN is on course for the wettest July ever, keeping miserable workers trapped in the office at lunchtime with nothing to do but eat sandwiches at their desks and worry about how the Olympics might affect travel arrangements. But Virgin Money has taken radical action in an effort to raise morale, installing a games arcade [...]
Bank voted 7-2 in support for £50bn more QE July 18, 2012 THE BANK of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) approved its newest round of quantitative easing (QE) with seven for and two against, according to the minutes of its July meeting released yesterday. It had considered both £50bn and £75bn increases in asset purchases, but eventually the governor Sir Mervyn King tabled only a motion for [...]
Bernanke backs easy monetary stance to stimulate US recovery July 18, 2012 FEDERAL Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday shrugged off inflationary concerns in the US, warning against a premature reversal of the Fed’s ultra-dovish monetary policies. Bernanke said he was confident that America would avoid a double dip recession, but signalled that the Fed’s accommodative stance is here to stay for a while yet. Responding to concerns that [...]
IMF tells ECB to fight debt crisis with bond buys and rate cuts July 18, 2012 THE European Central Bank (ECB) could play a bigger role in fighting the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis through more rate cuts, bond purchases and further liquidity provision, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in a regular report yesterday on the Eurozone. The IMF also said that the independent ECB, which is legally forbidden to finance [...]
