Disney and Viacom profits up November 10, 2011 US film groups Viacom and Disney both reported growth in their quarterly revenues and profit yesterday, as big-ticket films continued to do well. Viacom, the company behind MTV and Paramount Pictures, said the success of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” pushed its revenues up 22 per cent to $4bn (£2.5bn) while Disney said its profits [...]
Banks pitch £4bn credit easing plan November 10, 2011 BANKS have pitched a credit easing scheme that would flood small businesses with up to £4bn of new loans within a year of being launched, City A.M. has learned. In a confidential policy paper sent to HM Treasury last week and seen by City A.M., Britain’s biggest lenders have proposed a plan that would see [...]
Cable: we can cope with Eurozone crisis November 10, 2011 VINCE Cable warned yesterday that the UK is in “dangerous territory” as it faces a potential meltdown across the Eurozone, but said the government had plans to handle a possible breakup of the currency union. The business secretary said the UK was well positioned to avoid the kind of crisis engulfing states such as Italy. [...]
CFTC starts MF Global probe November 10, 2011 THE US futures regulator yesterday said it has launched a formal investigation into bankrupt MF Global, increasing pressure on the brokerage as the search for roughly $600m (£377.1m) in missing funds continues. The announcement by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is rare as the agency typically does not usually publicly announce probes it is launching. [...]
Adobe bows to Apple on Flash November 10, 2011 ADOBE Systems ended its lengthy software war with Apple yesterday, agreeing to stop developing its own-brand Flash Player for mobile browsers and use a web platform that Apple approves. Adobe said it would allow developers to use HTML5 technology rather than its own Flash tools to produce content for viewing on mobile devices in a [...]
Merkel should make the brave choice – there are no others left November 10, 2011 THE taboos are falling by the wayside: first it was haircuts, then default, now, rumours are leaking out that a full euro break-up is on the cards. The prospect is viewed with such horror by markets that they have gone into the same mode of denial usually reserved for Brussels’ top Eurocrats. Despite mounting evidence [...]
France to get an ECB board slot as Smaghi resigns November 10, 2011 LORENZO Bini Smaghi, the Italian member of the European Central Bank’s executive board, yesterday said he would resign before the end of his current term to take up a job in the US. Smaghi, who has an economics doctorate from the University of Chicago, ends his term at the ECB on 31 May 2013 but [...]
Recession is a possibility, admits the EC November 10, 2011 THE WORLD economy is back in the “danger zone”, the European Commission admitted yesterday as it slashed the Eurozone’s growth forecast for next year to a paltry 0.5 per cent – massively down from its previous estimate of 1.8 per cent growth. “We do not expect a recession in our baseline scenario,” the EC report [...]
Technocrats take charge November 10, 2011 GREECE appointed former central banker Lucas Papademos as Prime Minister yesterday, taking over from George Papandreou. Meanwhile former European commissioner Mario Monti (above, left) was appointed senator for life by President Napolitano, leading analysts to predict he will replace the resigning Silvio Berlusconi. Both are expected to lead technocratic governments that are intended to override [...]
Crédit Agricole hit by €600m Greek debt loss November 10, 2011 FRANCE’S third-biggest listed bank, Crédit Agricole, said yesterday that third-quarter net profit slumped by 65 per cent on the back of Greek sovereign debt losses. The bank, which is majority-owned by a group of regional banking cooperatives, said it booked a €637m (£545m) charge after writing down its Greek holdings by 60 per cent, in [...]
