Greene King swoops on 11 Punch pubs June 9, 2009 EMBATTLED pub group Punch Taverns yesterday disposed of 11 pubs in a £30m deal with rival firm Greene King. The acquisition comes after Greene King raised £207m from shareholders to take advantage of cut-price assets in the pub sector. The 11 pubs generated earnings before interest and tax of £3.55m in the year to end [...]
Final Lloyd’s of London firm set to leave the FTSE 100 June 9, 2009 FTSE INTERNATIONAL is expected to confirm tonight that Amlin will be demoted from the FTSE 100, the last Lloyd’s of London insurers to leave the index. Based on last night’s share prices, pub company Whitbread and power station operator Drax Group are likely to join the insurer on the FTSE 250. Predicted to move back [...]
OECD jobless rate up in April June 9, 2009 UNEMPLOYMENT rose in the world’s biggest economies, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The rate for the OECD area was 7.8 per cent in April, 2.2 percentage points higher on a year earlier. In the Eurozone, the rate of unemployment was 9.2 per cent in April, while the US saw unemployment [...]
Bidders eye up Keydata assets June 9, 2009 KEYDATA Investment Services has attracted a line-up of potential new buyers after going into administration. Specialist investment boutique Jubilee Financial Products and Opal, a provider of structured product services, are two of the companies who have approached administrators Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC). The Financial Services Authority (FSA) placed the firm, which has 85,000 investors, into administration. PwC [...]
Swiss state to sell UBS stake June 9, 2009 THE Swiss government is in discussions with several parties over the sale of the stake it took in UBS, when it bailed the bank out last year. Switzerland’s finance ministry, Finmin, said it had not yet decided whether to convert its mandatory convertible notes into shares or to sell them. Finmin took the notes as [...]
Treasury hires banks to manage auction of bonds June 9, 2009 THE Treasury has turned to a quartet of banks to manage a sale of 25-year bonds, in its first syndicated gilt sale in four years. The Debt Management Office said Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland had been hired to sell the securities during the week beginning 15 June. The bonds, [...]
Heritage Oil and Turkey’s Genel agree a $6bn merger and set sights on FTSE 100 June 9, 2009 HERITAGE OIL yesterday agreed to merge with Genel Enerji, a unit of Turkey’s Cukurova Group , to create a FTSE-100 oil producer focused on Iraqi Kurdistan worth around $5.5bn (£3.3bn) Heritage’s controversial founder and chief executive, ex-mercenary Tony Buckingham, is betting that years of wrangling between Baghdad and Kurdish leaders over oil revenue sharing is [...]
TAXI CASH CALL HAILED June 9, 2009 SHARES in Manganese Bronze jumped 16.9 percent yesterday, after the makers of London’s black cabs announced a placing of new shares to raise £9.4m. It will place 5.35m shares at 187p per share. Tough trading conditions in its core UK market meant it needed to secure extra funding, Bronze said. The company sells cars in [...]
JP MORGAN CAZENOVE IAN HANNAM June 9, 2009 JP Morgan Cazenove’s (JP M Caz) top dealmaker Ian Hannam was the chief adviser on the Heritage-Genel merger. He’s tipped to be the big beast of 2009’s bonus pool, having reeled in most of the company’s big deals. He, along-side JP M Caz’s new chief executive, Naguib Kheraj, secured advisership on the HSBC, Xstrata, Land [...]
S&P downgrades Clear Channel June 9, 2009 Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday cut its rating on Clear Channel Communications and parent company CC Media, amid concerns that it may breach covenants on its $20bn (£12.4bn) of debt. S&P downgraded the radio and outdoor advertising group’s rating from B- to CCC, saying it was concerned that it could be forced into [...]
