Bolivian army seizes control of Spanish energy business TDE May 1, 2012 BOLIVIA followed in Argentina’s protectionist footsteps yesterday as it nationalised a local unit of Spain’s Red Electrica, blaming a lack of investment in the country. Bolivia’s leftist President Evo Morales ordered the army to take over the Cochabamba headquarters of the power transmission company known as TDE. The move came just two weeks after Argentina [...]
Investors flee Eurozone as crisis deepens May 1, 2012 INVESTORS renewed their flight from the troubled Eurozone economies in April, figures revealed yesterday, driving up peripheral governments’ borrowing costs. Surveys of 55 leading investment houses in the US, Europe, UK and Japan showed holdings of Eurozone bonds in balanced portfolios fell to 24.5 per cent, compared with 26 per cent in March and substantially [...]
Shares in News Corp rise while Murdoch slated May 1, 2012 AS MPs in London produced the most damning report so far of Rupert Murdoch’s stewardship of his UK newspapers, shares of his global media group somewhat perversely rose. The Commons culture, media and sports committee yesterday concluded that Rupert Murdoch and his son James exhibited a “wilful” blindness towards phone-hacking at the News of the [...]
What next for the News Corp execs? May 1, 2012 Q Can Hinton, Myler and Crone be punished for misleading the committee? A It is now up to Parliament to decide whether the three News Corp executives have committed a contempt, and if so, what punishment should be imposed. A possible outcome is that they will be called to the House of Commons to apologise [...]
Funding costs drive Lloyds to slash loan book May 1, 2012 LLOYDS has taken an axe to its balance sheet in order to cut its reliance on increasingly expensive wholesale funding, the bank revealed yesterday. Markets welcomed the speedy shrinkage of the bank’s loan book as well as a signal from chief executive António Horta-Osório that he is keen to start paying a regular dividend and [...]
Xstrata’s shareholders protest over pay and Glencore merger May 1, 2012 DISGRUNTLED shareholders in miner Xstrata yesterday made their concerns felt over the firm’s strategy ahead of its planned merger with commodities giant Glencore. Almost four in ten shareholders failed to support the firm’s pay plan, while more than 15 per cent refused to vote for the reappointment of director Ivan Glasenberg – who also runs [...]
Why a lender promising to cut its lending makes sense – and why the ECB can’t do much about it May 1, 2012 IT IS not often these days that you hear a high street bank executive admit that his plan is to lend less to those well-loved aspirational families. And yet that is exactly what António Horta-Osório told analysts yesterday on a call to discuss Lloyds’ first quarter results. The aim, he said, is to slash the [...]
Yield-hungry EU investors flock to bonds May 1, 2012 EUROPEAN investors are fuelling a “bond boom” in their hunt for income, but they are shunning western government bonds in favour of high yield and emerging market debt. A report by Morningstar, the funds data company, shows that while European equity funds lost €1.3bn in assets under management in March, bond funds gained €13.9bn, with [...]
HSBC unit generates bigger profits despite losing assets May 1, 2012 HSBC saw investors withdraw $200m from its hedge fund and private equity unit last year, but managed to increase the profits it made off the remaining assets it manages by 24 per cent. HSBC Alternative Investments Ltd (HAIL), a part of the group’s private banking division that invests clients’ money in private equity, hedge fund [...]
No large claims helps Lloyd’s May 1, 2012 LLOYD’S of London insurance market said yesterday that there had been no change to its expected performance for 2012 thanks to a lack of major claims in the first quarter of this year. The market said the excess of its central assets over solvency shortfalls rose to £3.2bn in the first three months of 2012, [...]
