Companies pull London IPOs May 24, 2012 London’s reputation as a global centre for capital markets suffered another blow yesterday when a third company pulled its planned London Stock Exchange listing in the space of a fortnight. Georgian Railway blamed market turmoil as it postponed plans to raise up to $250m (£160m) by selling as much as a quarter of its stock. [...]
Friends of Lynch point finger at HP May 24, 2012 Friends of Mike Lynch yesterday directed the blame at Hewlett-Packard for Autonomy’s recent revenue drop which led to the ousting of the British tech guru. It emerged yesterday that Lynch is the latest in a long line of execs to leave Autonomy since its £6.2bn buyout by HP last year. “HP have really stuck the [...]
Hunt backed BSkyB deal before he judged the bid May 24, 2012 DAVID Cameron faced fresh questions over his judgment last night after it emerged he knew Jeremy Hunt was an enthusiastic backer of News Corp’s £8bn bid for BSkyB when he asked the culture secretary to decide on the deal. The Prime Minister gave Hunt a quasi-judicial role in December 2010 after Vince Cable, the business [...]
Eurozone crisis moves ever closer as Greek left gains ground May 24, 2012 AN ideas factory: that was the best way to describe City A.M.’s extraordinarily well-attended investment conference, held yesterday. The Eurozone was at the top of everybody’s agenda. Even before the news last night that the Greek far-left party Syriza had hit 30 per cent in the opinion polls, most of the speakers were only divided [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 24, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES EDF warns Hollande on nuclear plant Henri Proglio, chief executive of EDF, has warned France’s new president that he will need to discuss compensation with the nuclear power group if he presses on with plans to shut the country’s oldest atomic plant. Dow Chemical wins Kuwait damages Dow Chemical of the US has [...]
Bankia bailout bill soars again to over €15bn May 24, 2012 SPAIN’S fourth-largest lender Bankia is expected to today beg the state for more than €15bn (£12bn) to bail it out when its new management team presents a restructuring plan “The help needed to clean up the bank will be more than €15bn,” a source told Reuters last night. The bill is almost double the estimation [...]
Investors back Goldman pay May 24, 2012 Goldman Sachs shareholders yesterday approved the firm’s compensation plan for top executives and backed all 10 directors up for election at its annual meeting. Investors rejected three stockholder proposals, including a resolution urging the board to require top executives to keep 75 per cent of the stock they receive from Goldman for three years after [...]
Facebook claims could top $100m May 24, 2012 Claims by four of Wall Street’s main market makers against Nasdaq over Facebook’s botched IPO are likely to exceed $100m, as they and other traders continue to deal with thousands of problems with customer orders. The exchange operator is facing lawsuits from investors and threats of legal action from brokers. Four of the top market [...]
UK recession is worse than was first thought May 24, 2012 THE ECONOMY contracted more sharply that first thought in the opening quarter of the year, official figures showed yesterday, increasing pressure on the government to change course in an effort to boost growth. The updated GDP estimates revealed the economy contracted 0.3 per cent in the first quarter, not the 0.2 per cent shown in [...]
Excessive regulation may have stunted credit, says Bank official May 24, 2012 REGULATORS may have thwarted the supply of credit to the economy by reacting too sharply in the wake of the financial crisis, a senior Bank of England official said yesterday. Alastair Clark, who sits on the Bank’s new super-regulator, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC), said that there was a danger in strangling the sector with [...]
