Record gold and silver output at Fresnillo October 13, 2010 A RECORD boom in gold and silver output at miner Fresnillo caused investors to rush to buy the stock yesterday. The Mexico-focused miner said production will be slightly above its full-year targets thanks to a record third quarter. Gold output jumped 44.4 per cent on the year-earlier quarter to nearly 92,000 ounces in the three [...]
Overhaul for Crest Nicholson October 13, 2010 TROUBLED housebuilder Crest Nicholson faces another financial restructuring as new majority shareholder Varde examines the company’s finances, people close to the business said yesterday. US-based Varde is working with advisers Lazard and Bingham McCutchen on the options for Crest, which became 90 per cent owned by its lenders following a £648m debt for equity swap [...]
Profit jump lifts shares in Bodycote October 13, 2010 SHARES in Bodycote shot up more than nine per cent yesterday after the engineer revealed that full-year profit would come in at the top of analysts’ expectations. Bodycote said renewed demand from heavy truck customers such as Scania and Volvo has helped push revenue in the nine months to 30 September up 13 per cent. [...]
Terry Smith stands aside to focus on fund business October 13, 2010 City veteran Terry Smith is retiring as a director and deputy chairman of stockbroker Collins Stewart to focus on his new asset management venture Fundsmith. Smith, one of the UK’s best-known investment bankers who led the management buyout of Collins Stewart after becoming chief executive in 2000, will remain chief executive of inter-dealer broker Tullett [...]
Lloyds slashes 4,500 posts from IT team October 13, 2010 LLOYDS Banking Group yesterday announced it will shed 4,500 jobs from its IT team as part of an ongoing integration plan. The bank said it will lose 1,600 permanent staff across the UK, 1,150 temporary UK workers and 1,750 offshore contractors. The redundancies will be made by 2012. Mark Fisher, director of group operations at [...]
EU proposals target radical audit revamp October 13, 2010 “BIG FOUR” accountancy firms could be forced to scale back their audit activities in the future, if a European Commission consultation on shaking up the industry finds that the scale of individual players poses a systemic risk. The EU’s internal markets commissioner Michel Barnier yesterday launched the wide-ranging consultation to examine whether the role of [...]
Rivals circle Turkey’s Dogan October 13, 2010 Germany’s RTL Group and US-based Time Warner are believed to have submitted bids for assets belonging to Turkey’s largest media company Dogan Yayin. Dogan Yayin, which owns Turkey’s largest broadcasting network as well as several newspapers and magazines, is valued at around $2bn (£1.25bn). News Corp had submitted a bid but pulled out yesterday because [...]
GEKKO IS GOOD FOR BOX OFFICE October 13, 2010 Cinema-goers have proved high finance is still a firm favourite by sending financial drama “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” to the top of the UK box office. The movie, starring Michael Douglas in a reprise of his role as corporate raider Gordon Gekko, took £1.8m, easily beating romantic comedy “Life As We Know It”.
Drinks sales see faltering recovery October 13, 2010 NEW figures show that the alcohol industry in the UK is experiencing an “unsteady and uneven” recovery. Latest HMRC figures show beer sales fell in July, adding to publicans’ woes. The volume of beer released for UK consumption was down 1.7 per cent compared to the figure in June and 5.1 per cent year-on-year. The [...]
Microsoft looks to deepen ties with Facebook October 13, 2010 Microsoft deepened its ties with social networking company Facebook yesterday, bolstering its fledgling Bing search engine to catch up with Google. Starting yesterday, Bing will integrate content from the world’s leading social network, tailoring search results to users’ preferences based on information from their network of Facebook friends — which Google does not do. Microsoft [...]
