KKR nears a Samson deal November 1, 2011 PRIVATE equity company KKR & Co is in exclusive talks to buy most of Samson Investment Co, a privately held US oil and gas company, in what could be the biggest buyout of the year. The private equity firm is not likely to want Samson’s Gulf of Mexico assets, one source said. While the whole [...]
Why the Archbishop has got it wrong November 1, 2011 I must confess that I’m glad not to be a member of the Church of England, an institution that has been hemorrhaging members ever since anybody can remember. While I have the deepest respect for the remaining band of Anglican churchgoers (though not for the CoE’s leadership), I can’t say I’m surprised by the Church’s [...]
News Corp papers emerge November 1, 2011 NEWS CORPORATION agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to an early phone-hacking victim because it recognised that evidence from the case was “fatal” to its claims of innocence, new evidence released yesterday claimed. Briefing notes and emails between News Corp lawyers and handed over to the parliamentary committee investigating the scandal make it [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 1, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES BIG AREAS STILL LACK 3G, SAYS OFCOM Nearly 90 per cent of the UK’s land mass and a quarter of buildings are unable to receive all five 3G phone networks a decade after the introduction of the mobile licences, according to the telecoms regulator. In its first report on the UK’s communications infrastructure, [...]
Horta-Osorio to go on medical leave November 1, 2011 António Horta-Osório, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group who joined the lender at the beginning of the year, is poised to step back from his role as chief executive due to health reasons, the Financial Times reported this morning. The paper claims it will be revealed at a board meeting today that Horta-Osório, who [...]
Madoff trustee loses JPM case November 1, 2011 A US judge last night threw out most of a $19.9bn (£12.46bn) lawsuit against JP Morgan Chase and a $2bn case against UBS by the trustee seeking money for victims of epic swindler Bernard Madoff’s fraud. The decision is one of the largest setbacks for the trustee, Irving Picard, who has spent nearly three years [...]
Client money not separated at MF Global November 1, 2011 BANKRUPT US broker MF Global flouted rules on keeping client and company funds in separate accounts, the head of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange claimed yesterday. Under rules set by the CME and the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), companies must hold client assets separately from those belonging to the company, but the exchange said preliminary [...]
Jefferies said it walked away from MF offer November 1, 2011 JEFFERIES decided not to buy MF Global Holdings because the company’s high leverage and its bets on European debt made it a risky gamble, Jefferies chief financial officer Peregrine Broadbent said yesterday. Shares in the US bank tumbled as much as 14 per cent as investors feared that the investment bank, another relatively small Wall [...]
St Paul’s protesters win pause in expulsion plans November 1, 2011 LEGAL action to remove anti-capitalist protesters from the area surrounding St Paul’s Cathedral was put on hold yesterday after discussions led to renewed cooperation between the church, the City and protesters. St Paul’s announced it wanted to “engage directly with both the protesters and the moral and social issues they wish to address, without the [...]
G4S investors vent ire after ISS deal scrapped November 1, 2011 INVESTORS in security firm G4S started to call for the chairman’s scalp yesterday after the company abandoned its takeover of Danish cleaning group ISS at the eleventh hour. Shareholders welcomed the decision to abort the unpopular £5.2bn merger, but called for chairman Alf Duch-Pedersen to resign over his handling of the deal. G4S pulled the [...]
