Avocet’s takings triple in 2011 February 23, 2012 Avocet Mining said yesterday full-year profits more than tripled to $115.1m (£73.2m), boosted by gains from the sale of its South East Asian assets as the gold miner turns its focus exclusively to its West African projects. Excluding exceptional items the miner still posted a jump in 2011 profit to $56.4m from $33.4m a year [...]
Iberdrola issues profit warning February 23, 2012 Spain’s largest power firm Iberdrola warned on profits yesterday after a weak set of 2011 results that showed demand falling in core markets while consumption remained stifled in fragile economies. Iberdrola cut its 2010-2012 recurrent net profit target to under five per cent growth and its Ebitda growth target to about five per cent, compared [...]
Bodycote grows earnings 64pc February 23, 2012 British engineering firm Bodycote said yesterday it expects to gain market share this year on the back of strong sales in emerging markets and its aerospace and defence segment. The company, whose operations include heat treating jet engine turbine blades, said headline operating profit grew 64 per cent to £85.5m in 2011.
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 23, 2012 Deloitte Mike Sobers has been appointed as a partner to Deloitte’s enterprise risk service practice, a 1,000-strong team of professionals in the UK dedicated to helping businesses solve complex risk and control issues. Sobers joins Deloitte from Aviva, where he was the audit director with global responsibility for technology and project audit. During this time, [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 23, 2012 COVE Peel Hunt has downgraded the Mozambique-focused oil & gas explorer from “buy” to “hold” with a target price of 215p, saying that Shell’s offer of £992.4m earlier this week only values the company at 77.7 per cent of its implied value. The broker sees the offer as an early, competitive “knock-out” offer that may [...]
FTSE inches upwards as US figures propel commodities February 23, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares rose yesterday as investors welcomed robust corporate earnings newsflow, with Royal Bank of Scotland spearheading an advance in banking stocks after the lender unveiled in-line full-year results. The UK benchmark closed up 21.34 points, or 0.4 per cent, at 5,937.89. RBS, up 5.1 per cent, was the second-top blue-chip riser, recovering after [...]
Wall Street nears pre-Lehman highs February 23, 2012 WALL Street stocks rose yesterday after data showed the US labour market remained on the mend, but the market stalled as it approached highs not seen since before the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. In an upbeat note for the economy, new US claims for unemployment benefits held steady last week and were at the [...]
With the state out of money we have much to learn from the American way of giving February 23, 2012 TAKE a walk on Park Avenue or Wall Street and you’ll see countless posters and banners profiling the wide variety of cultural activities on offer in New York. And at the bottom of each you’ll see sponsorship from a large private company – usually a bank, and usually a big one at that. Goldman, Morgan, [...]
Britain’s growth will be powered by smaller firms February 23, 2012 WHEN Xavier Rolet, chief executive of London Stock Exchange Group, said in City A.M. on 9 January that small and medium enterprises provide the best hope for reviving the UK economy, I cheered. “Without the growth of fledgling companies, there will be little meaningful job creation,” he said. How true. When regulators and politicians talk [...]
Greece’s history holds its hope for the future February 23, 2012 PEOPLE say that Greece used to be great. That’s not quite right of course. They mean Athens. Ancient Greece was a jumble of city-states, some even worse than the political and economic disaster of Greece today. Sparta was a totalitarian state, a role model for the Nazis. Ancient Athens, however, has a strong claim to [...]
