Facebook share sell-off values firm at $65bn August 15, 2011 INTERPUBLIC Group, the global advertising firm that owns agencies including McCann Erickson, has sold half of its stake in Facebook for $133m (£81m) to an unnamed buyer. Interpublic, which was an early investor in Facebook, is believed to have held a 0.4 per cent stake, which would value the social networking site at about $65bn. [...]
Merkel jets to Paris for talks August 15, 2011 PARIS will host German chancellor Angela Merkel today, as she joins French president Nicolas Sarkozy in a bid to control the Eurozone’s growing debt crisis. The controversial euro bonds plan – which would see debt pooled across the 17 members of the single currency – is believed to be off the agenda, with increasing opposition [...]
Majority of German public want Greece out of the single currency August 15, 2011 OVER half the German public want Greece booted out of the Eurozone, a hard-hitting poll revealed yesterday. Anger towards the debt-ridden peripheral economy was felt most in Germany — according to the YouGov survey — where 58 per cent of respondents said that Greece should be removed from the single currency. Nearly half (45 per [...]
EUROZONE CRISIS: WHERE WILL IT GO FROM HERE? August 15, 2011 HAS THE TIME FOR EURO BONDS ARRIVED? The buzz phrase of the moment is “euro bonds”. The bonds would see debt from troubled nation states such as Greece and Portugal pooled across all Eurozone members. Senior German government officials have repeatedly denounced the plan, yet suggestions have leaked that the bonds are secretly being considered [...]
Two week low for Swiss franc against the euro August 15, 2011 THE Swiss franc fell to a two-week low against both the dollar and the euro yesterday, as speculation mounted that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) would intervene to halt its currency’s appreciation. The euro climbed 1.6 per cent to hit 1.1266 Swiss francs, having spiked to 1.1458 Swiss francs in earlier trading. Last week the [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: HOW MUCH MORE DEBT IS THE ECB LIKELY TO BUY? August 15, 2011 ANDREW LILICO | EUROPE ECONOMICS If the ECB was to keep up the level of buying seen last week then it would turn into an awful lot of money, but I don’t think it will. They’re just keeping the wheels on the bus until they see Merkel and Sarkozy coming up with a credible solution. It [...]
Evolution’s finance boss quits amid takeover talk August 15, 2011 EVOLUTION Group lost its finance director and reappointed one of its former non-executives to its board yesterday amid signs that a takeover bid for the firm was progressing. Andrew Westenberger, the group’s finance director for almost two and a half years, resigned with immediate effect and with no explanation or an immediate successor. But Evolution [...]
Miles not in favour of QE2 August 15, 2011 SENIOR Bank of England rate-setter David Miles has dismissed calls for more quantitative easing, despite the UK’s stuttering recovery and market instability. “There could be circumstances under which I would judge the right policy would be to embark on further asset purchases but that’s not how I’ve seen things thus far,” Miles told Dow Jones [...]
New York’s factories in fresh fall August 15, 2011 AMERICA’S economic prospects took a hit yesterday, as it was revealed that New York state’s factory sector contracted for the third straight month. The Empire State regional manufacturing index worsened to -7.7 this month, down from -3.8 in July. “The index has now been below zero for three months in a row and, in falling [...]
Japan’s GDP data points to recovery August 15, 2011 JAPAN’S economy contracted 0.3 percent in the three months to the end of June, slower than the decline in the previous quarter, as output recovers from the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March, Cabinet Office data showed yesterday. The quarter-on-quarter contraction was smaller than the median estimate for a 0.7 per cent decline and follows [...]
