London 2012 IMAGE OF THE WEEK November 24, 2011 LONDON 2012 | OLYMPIC POWER EDF, the official electricity supplier of the 2012 Games, this week unveiled Team EDF, a line-up of 36 Olympic and Paralympic athletes, at Tower Bridge, which EDF is helping to relight. Lord Coe, EDF Energy chief executive Vincent de Rivaz and head of 2012 EDF Catherine Lescure attended. Joining the [...]
Pennon profits rise on recycling November 24, 2011 BRITISH water and sewerage services company Pennon Group reported a better-than-expected pre-tax profits for the first half helped by strong growth at its waste management unit Viridor. Waste management, recycling and renewable energy company Viridor now accounts for a third of total group profits. First-half total pre-tax profits rose 12 per cent to £107.4m, higher [...]
Flybe’s $500m new plane fund November 24, 2011 REGIONAL airline Flybe has signed for a loan with the Brazilian Export Development Bank for $500m (£330m) to help update its fleet. Flybe is buying 35 new Embraer aircraft, with delivery between 2011 and 2016, and the firm is using its new loan to pay for around 20 of those. Chairman and chief executive Jim [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS November 24, 2011 BSKYB Nomura rates BSkyB neutral with a £10.00 target over the Competition Commission’s bid to encourage more bidders for movie broadcast rights. The CC suggests letting third parties sell directly to Sky’s Anytime customers, and that Sky publish the dates its film contracts end. Nomura sees limited impact in these as in two recent deals [...]
FTSE sees longest slide in nine years November 24, 2011 THE UK’s blue-chip share index ended lower for the ninth consecutive session yesterday in its worst run since January 2003 after Germany reiterated its opposition to the use of euro bonds or monetary tools to help solve the Eurozone’s debt crisis. Following a meeting with the leaders of France and Italy, German chancellor Angela Merkel [...]
Sixth day of falling stock November 24, 2011 EUROPEAN shares fell for the sixth consecutive session in low volume yesterday after German Chancellor Angela Merkel restated her position against changing the role of the European Central Bank to ease the Eurozone debt crisis. The market trimmed gains after the comments by Merkel about the ECB as well as remarks that she remained opposed [...]
Physicists are hunting for a so-called God particle, but their faith is dwindling fast November 24, 2011 EVER since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was nearing completion at Cern, the European centre for particle physics near Geneva, particle scientists have been earnestly explaining that it really doesn’t matter if the huge accelerator fails to snare its main quarry, a particle called the Higgs boson. Maybe it exists; maybe it doesn’t. It’s interesting [...]
Lehman lawyers think insolvency regime too weak November 24, 2011 THE high profile failure of MF Global has once again highlighted the intractable problems that arise when an investment firm fails. The latest reports suggest that the shortfall on client funds may be as much as $1.2bn (£0.7bn). Staggeringly, that represents a quarter of all the funds that the firm was supposed to be holding. [...]
There’s no middle way: Stretch or be squeezed November 24, 2011 THE Oxford English Dictionary has declared Ed Miliband’s phrase “the squeezed middle” its word of the year. Yes, it’s a phrase, not a word, and let’s set aside how tricky writing the definition must have been, given that Miliband’s concept of the middle appears to reach over the whole population except for far extremes of [...]
RAPID RESPONSES November 24, 2011 Safer than some Allister Heath writes, “the main reason why UK gilt yields hit record lows yesterday is that the Bank of England is monetising the entirety of the government’s borrowing” [Even Germany is feeling the pressure, yesterday]. That would explain why gilts were strong, but sterling has been strong against Asian currencies, suggesting foreign [...]
