KNOC bid for Dana hits the buffers August 12, 2010 Oil explorer Dana Petroleum takeover talks had stalled after Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) said it was unwilling to raise its offer and refused to sign a confidentiality agreement. Dana said senior board members had met with state-owned KNOC on 6 August following a £1.67bn approach for Dana last month. Dana said in a statement [...]
Findel sells unit to tackle debt August 12, 2010 Home shopping and education supplies firm Findel said it would sell a unit, which includes its gadgets and gifts business, to online retailer The Hut Group in a cash deal worth £0.6m to help reduce its debt pile. Findel, whose net debt stood at £309.6m as of 2 April, had earlier said its level of [...]
Sportingbet boosted by World Cup August 12, 2010 British Internet gambling firm Sportingbet said it had performed strongly during the World Cup in South Africa with margins boosted by a number of results going against the favourites during the competition. Sportingbet said it had taken over £50m worth of bets during the tournament, of which 65 per cent were made during matches using [...]
Prudential profit rises by 34pc August 12, 2010 Britain’s largest insurer Prudential reported a better-than-expected 34 per cent rise in first-half operating profit, helped by improving investment returns amid a broader market recovery. Prudential’s operating profit was £1.68bn for the first six months of the year, based on European Embedded Value (EEV) accounting standards, higher than a consensus forecast of £1.54bn and better [...]
Markets plunge on fresh dip fear August 11, 2010 GLOBAL markets plummeted yesterday after the Bank of England cut its growth forecast and the US trade gap widened dramatically intensifying fears of a double-dip recession. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones recorded its biggest loss in six weeks, dropping 2.5 per cent to 10,378.83 and taking the index into negative territory for the year, [...]
UBS to fight plagiarism accusations August 11, 2010 UBS last night said it would “vigorously” fight a potentially embarrassing lawsuit from a small news agency, which has accused the investment bank of lifting copyrighted material for its in-house updates. Energy Intelligence, an oil and gas reporting service, claims UBS reproduced parts of its articles for its own energy newsletter, Daily Oil News. It [...]
Private equity job for Davies August 11, 2010 Former government minister and past chairman of Standard Chartered Mervyn Davies has joined private equity firm Corsair Capital, boosting the specialist financial services investor’s senior management team. Lord Davies joins Corsair, which spun out of JPMorgan Chase in 2006, as vice chairman and partner, based in London. He most recently served as minister of state [...]
Desmond’s Channel Five revolution August 11, 2010 THE inevitable bloodbath occurred at Richard Desmond’s newly acquired Channel Five yesterday as seven directors and more than a quarter of the 300 employees were given their marching orders. The Northern & Shell and Express Group owner has promised further cost savings at the loss-making broadcaster but also an expansion of the programming budget to [...]
MPs told to return pay-off August 11, 2010 FORMER Labour cabinet ministers should hand back the £20,000 pay-off they received on leaving government to apologise for running up a huge budget deficit, the coalition government said yesterday. In an attack that was dismissed as a “gimmick” by Labour, Conservative party chairman Baroness Warsi has written to MPs who served in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, [...]
AIG sounds out appetite for AIA August 11, 2010 American government-backed insurance giant AIG has held talks with Asian sovereign wealth funds including Singapore’s GIC and Temasek over cornerstone investments for its autumn initial public offering (IPO) of AIA, it is understood. National investment corporations from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar are also thought to have shown an interest in taking large chunks of [...]
