No frills and certainly no thrills August 23, 2011 THE name Bipper Tepee promises a fun, nifty little car, something with quirky styling and even quirkier personalisation options on the inside, perhaps. And, while it’s no Nissan Cube on the styling front, it’s fair to say that Peugeot’s Bipper Tepee is a reasonably fun-looking car. That said, it does bear more than a passing [...]
CAR TALK August 23, 2011 VW CITY CAR The is Volkswagen’s tiny city car which is being launched at next month’s Frankfurt motor show. Small but as spacious as possible inside, the four-seater will go on sale with a 60PS or75PS three-cylinder petrol engine capable of up to 67mpg with less than 100g/km of CO2. An electric version is coming [...]
Rebels lay siege to Gaddafi compound as Nato jets strike August 23, 2011 Libyan rebels battled on around Muammar Gaddafi’s headquarters, where a son of the veteran leader had emerged overnight to confound reports of his capture and to rally cheering loyalists for a rearguard fightback. NATO jets flew in support of the rebels, who said they were trying to break into Gaddafi’s fortified Bab al-Aziziya compound. His [...]
US home sales and Atlantic factory data disappoint August 23, 2011 Disappointing new economic data from the US has raised further fears over its ability to recover from recession. Manufacturing output in the central Atlantic region of the US fell again in August as orders and shipment growth slowed, figures from the regional Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond showed. The Richmond Fed’s composite index of factory [...]
Eurozone manufacturing in contraction August 23, 2011 Manufacturing activity in the Eurozone shrank in August for the first time in two years, a survey has indicated. The Markit Manufacturing PMI measure for the Eurozone fell to 49.7 from 50.4 in July. A reading below 50 indicates contraction in the sector. Manufacturing has driven a large part of the economic recovery in the [...]
Gaddafi son vows fightback against rebels in Tripoli showdown August 23, 2011 One of Col Muammar Gaddafi’s sons, Saif al-Islam, has appeared in Tripoli and claimed the government had “broken the backbone” of the rebel offensive there. He turned up in a government vehicle at a hotel held by loyalists, a day after the rebels said they had detained him. A BBC correspondent said Saif al-Islam, who [...]
Foster’s unveils £316m payout as it fights SABMiller bid August 23, 2011 Australian brewer Foster’s Group sought to put pressure on SABMiller to up its $10 billion (£6bn) hostile takeover offer, unveiling on Tuesday a A$500 million (£316m) capital return even as profits slid. The country’s largest brewer proposed to return money to shareholders via a share buyback or capital reduction in an effort to get SABMiller [...]
H&T profits fuelled by soaring gold price August 23, 2011 Pawnbroker H&T said it expected full-year results to be above the top end of current market expectations, driven mainly by surging gold prices that boosted its first-half pretax profit. Spot gold prices soared above $1,910, scoring a record top for a fourth consecutive session, as persistent worries about global economic growth burnished bullion’s safe-haven appeal. [...]
Persimmon profit up 52pc August 23, 2011 Housebuilder Persimmon is targeting a rise in operating margin to about 15 percent in the next two years, Chief Executive Mike Farley told Reuters. Farley added that he expects the company to achieve double-digit operating margin growth next year. “We’d like to think in the next two years or so we have operating margin back [...]
UBS to cut 3,500 jobs worldwide August 23, 2011 Swiss bank UBS plans to slash around 3,500 jobs, almost half of them from its investment bank, as it seeks to shave some two billion Swiss francs from annual costs by the end of 2013. UBS had already said it would cut jobs when it posted a lower-than-expected second-quarter profit last month as its underperforming [...]
