Arcadis buys EC Harris October 17, 2011 Engineering firm Arcadis has said it will buy EC Harris, an international built asset consultancy. The international design, consulting, engineering and management services company said it would issue 3m shares to EC Harris partners and pay an undisclosed cash amount from existing credit facilities. SNS Securities analysts estimated the acquisition price to be between €108m [...]
Walmart China boss resigns October 17, 2011 Supermarket giant Walmart has replaced its top executive of China operations after it was forced to temporarily shut down stores in southwest China. The company, which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary in China, closed more than a dozen stores last week following allegations they sold regular pork as organic pork over the past two years. [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 17, 2011 Nikko Asset Management Nikko Asset Management Group, the largest regional asset manager headquartered in Asia, has appointed Eleanor Seet as president and executive director of Nikko Asset Management Asia. Seet will be responsible for leading the growth of Nikko AM in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining the firm, Seet held the role of [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS October 17, 2011 SYNGENTA Nomura rates the agricultural chemical maker as a “buy” and increases its target price from SwFr380 to SwFr385 after a better than expected set of third-quarter sales. The broker sees solid growth for 2012, plus a pricing improvement and productivity gains, which should more than offset adverse currency and raw material effects. Nomura increases [...]
Lack of plan to fix Euro debt crisis hits banks and miners October 17, 2011 BRITAIN’S leading share index closed lower yesterday, giving up early gains, as miners and banks went in to reverse after hopes for an imminent solution to Europe’s debt crisis were dashed by comments from Germany’s finance minister. Wolfgang Schaeuble played down heightened expectations that European governments will resolve the region’s sovereign debt crisis at a [...]
Fear gauge up as US stocks plunge October 17, 2011 US stocks suffered their worst loss in two weeks yesterday after comments from Germany’s finance minister caused investors to fear Europe’s solution to its debt crisis may not come fast enough. The S&P index had risen for two straight weeks for the first time since July, riding a wave of euphoria built on optimism that [...]
Steve Jobs was an amazing businessman – but Einstein’s the genius behind the iPod October 17, 2011 THE recent death of Steve Jobs is a timely moment to step back and reconsider what innovation is really for. Reading the obituaries and testimonies posted across the internet, you would not be alone in assuming that Saint Jobs had cured the world of cancer and is now in heaven, reconfiguring God’s messaging system from [...]
A few cold facts in the debate on high energy bills October 17, 2011 AT YESTERDAY’S energy price summit, David Cameron pledged that he would do whatever he could to bring down the spiralling cost of energy bills. There is only one problem: the coalition’s own costly green energy policies, which threaten to raise energy prices even further in coming years. David Cameron’s energy advisers recently warned him of [...]
The real central bank target is not inflation October 17, 2011 IT SEEMS like Mervyn King has abandoned the Bank of England’s (BoE) inflation target, with the consumer price index (CPI) apparently stuck well above 2 per cent. But has King privately taken up a different sort of target altogether? A more credible alternative that continues to gain momentum is to set a nominal GDP (NGDP) [...]
RAPID RESPONSES October 17, 2011 Empowered intern I support Rob Killick’s article [Why unpaid internships are a good thing, yesterday]. I began my career as an unpaid intern – hailing from precisely the kind of low income, disadvantaged background that is invoked to argue for closing down these opportunities. I worked a low paid (but flexible) job alongside these placements [...]
