easyJet to pay £195m dividend as profits soar November 15, 2011 Low-cost airline easyJet posted a 31.5 per cent rise in full-year profit, helped by costs cuts and an increase in the number of corporate passengers, and said it would return £195M to shareholders. The Luton, southern England-based carrier reported an underlying pretax profit of £248m on revenues 16 per cent higher at £3.45bn. It said [...]
UBS confirms Ermotti as CEO and Weber as chairman November 15, 2011 UBS has sealed the permanent appointment of Sergio Ermotti (pictured) as chief executive and named former Bundesbank president Axel Weber as its chairman from next May, one year earlier than planned. The appointments fill a leadership vacuum after former CEO Oswald Gruebel quit the Swiss bank in September following a $2BN rogue trading scandal. At [...]
Burberry first half profits jump November 15, 2011 Luxury goods group Burberry met forecasts with a 26 per cent rise in first-half profit, helped by buoyant tourist spending around the world, and kept its growth targets despite an uncertain economic backdrop. “We remain mindful of, and prepared to react to, any local or global uncertainties,” said the 155-year-old maker of raincoats and leather [...]
More jobs cut at Japanese banks November 14, 2011 Mizuho will cut 3,000 jobs as Japanese banks battle weak demand for credit at home and a tough global growth environment, which saw half-year profits at the lender and smaller rival Sumitomo Mitsui fall by a quarter. Mizuho Financial Group said yesterday it plans to axe the jobs, about five per cent of its workforce, [...]
Merkel: Euro crisis worst since WW11 November 14, 2011 German Chancellor says Eurozone situation is most serious since peace broke out in 1945 as yields on sovereign debt shoot up EUROPE faces its “toughest hour since World War Two”, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned her ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party yesterday. Her stark warning came as Italy slipped further into financial crisis and markets [...]
London hit by migration cap November 14, 2011 LONDON’S position as a global business hub is being hampered by the government’s migration cap, according to a report released this morning. The migration limits are causing businesses to postpone plans for expansion, the City of London Corporation has found. “Against the current backdrop of continuing uncertainty [over the cap], some global firms are reported [...]
UK set for a decade of deleveraging November 14, 2011 WELCOME to modern Britain, a nation of over-leveraged debt junkies only just waking up to the urgency of mending its ways. Realising the scale of the UK’s long-standing addiction to credit is vital to understanding why growth forecasts are being cut left, right and centre. The real drag on demand in the UK won’t come [...]
Ackermann exits in 2012 November 14, 2011 DEUTSCHE Bank chief executive Josef Ackermann’s nine-year reign at the top of Germany’s largest lender will end next year after the banker withdrew his candidacy to join the supervisory board. The Swiss investment banker, who will step down from the chief exec role as planned in May, said “extremely challenging” conditions on the financial markets [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 14, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES FSA faces challenge in appeal against fine The ability of the City’s watchdog to punish senior executives for insufficient supervision is being challenged in a test case by a former head of UBS’s wealth management operations in the UK. A tribunal yesterday heard an appeal by John Pottage, UBS’s former head of wealth [...]
Chancellor set to reform PFI November 14, 2011 THE GOVERNMENT will today announce plans to reform the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), a highly controversial method of funding the construction of schools and hospitals. Last night, a Treasury source said: “This will effectively mean the end of PFI as we know it.” Treasury sources say the chancellor wants to find a new way of [...]
