London Sports Festival moves from 3×3 basketball success to pickleball at the City of London Corporation’s Guildhall Yard
Bank mulled even more QE in February February 22, 2012 Two Bank of England policymakers voted for a bigger stimulus to the economy in February than their colleagues could support, minutes to the Bank’s February 8-9 meeting showed on Wednesday. The news is likely to re-open the debate about whether the central bank will add further quantitative easing in May, especially as the minutes showed [...]
Shell bids $1.6bn for Cove February 22, 2012 Royal Dutch Shell has made a ($1.6bn) £992.4m bid for Mozambique-focused Cove Energy, offering a full price to open up a new gas frontier for the Anglo-Dutch oil major in East Africa. Shell has offered 195 pence per share in cash, which Cove’s directors said Wednesday they would recommend to shareholders. Tuesday, Cove’s shares closed [...]
Barratt swings to profit February 22, 2012 Housebuilder Barratt swung into profit in the six months to 31 December as revenues climbed. Pre tax profits of of £21.6m compared with a loss of £4,6m in the same period the previous year, Revenues jumped by 8.6 per cent to £952.8m while the average selling price of its homes increased by 3.1 per cent [...]
BAA losses narrow after record Heathrow passenger numbers February 22, 2012 Heathrow airport passenger numbers rose five per cent to a record 69.4m last year, helping BAA to narrow its losses. The airport operator made a loss of £255.8m in the year to 31 December, compared with£316.6m the year before. Passengers at its Stansted airport dropped by by 2.8 per cent to 18m. The company said [...]
China new export orders fall February 22, 2012 China’s new export orders shrank in February the most in eight months, a preliminary HSBC business survey shows, defying expectations of a pick up after Lunar New Year holidays and a worrying sign of the impact of the euro area debt crisis. Many analysts had expected some rebound in February after imports and exports fell [...]
Dow hits 13,000 February 21, 2012 But European traders are sceptical as Greek bailout rally fades US MARKETS ignored the shakiness of the Greek bailout deal yesterday, with bullish investors pushing the Dow Jones through the symbolically important 13,000 mark for the first time since before the financial crisis. But Europe’s markets slipped as worries mounted that politicians had comprehensively failed [...]
BC’s new fund pulls in €6.5bn February 21, 2012 PRIVATE equity house BC Partners has shone a ray of light on the troubled buyout industry by raising €6.5bn (£5.45bn), in the largest European fundraising since the onset of the financial crisis. The owner of gyms chain Fitness First and Swedish cable group Com Hem raised more than it expected despite many of the world’s [...]
Osborne’s lucky escape on the deficit February 21, 2012 FOR once, and I can barely believe that I’m writing this, George Osborne has reason to be happy. The budget deficit for this fiscal year to date (April 2011-January 2012) was a still horrendous, Greek-style £93.5bn, but this was down £15.6bn from a year earlier, a very non-Greek development. This is a much better performance [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING February 21, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES OSBORNE URGED TO CUT TAXES ON BUSINESS George Osborne has come under renewed pressure from the Conservative right to cut business taxes and simplify labour laws in next month’s Budget. Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, called for urgent action to deal with the “true horror” of the government’s economic inheritance. PANDORA PLUNGES [...]
HSBC overhauls bonuses February 21, 2012 HSBC is to adopt a complicated new way of paying the cash part of its staff’s bonuses after pressure from the Bank of England and FSA. The bank is set to unveil a system to pay for the up-front cash chunk of bonuses (20 per cent of the total) for senior UK staff by issuing [...]
