WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 4, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES DIPLOMATS TO BECOME SALESMEN The job description for Britain’s ambassadors is to be rewritten to include tough targets for trade promotion and a requirement for the country’s top diplomats to tour the UK’s regions to showcase commercial opportunities abroad. As well as gliding through the corridors of foreign ministries and cultivating contacts with [...]
Battle to halt BP oil spill has almost ended August 4, 2010 US President Barack Obama said yesterday that BP’s Gulf of Mexico spill is “close to coming to an end” after scientists agreed that three-quarters of the oil is gone and engineers successfully killed the leaking well. “The long battle to stop the leak and contain the oil is finally close to coming to an end,” [...]
Advertising rebound helps News Corp and T Warner August 4, 2010 TWO of the world’s largest media companies reported buoyant quarterly earnings yesterday amid signs of resurgent income from advertising. News Corporation, whose portfolio includes satellite broadcaster BSkyB and The Times newspaper, swung to a profit of $875m (£550.7m) or 33 cents per share in the fiscal fourth quarter. It lost $203m at the same point [...]
Private sector payrolls better than expected August 4, 2010 PRIVATE sector firms in the United States upped their staff counts last month and added 42,000 jobs in the July, according to a survey from payrolls processor ADP Employer Services. This was slightly more than economists had forecast and was encouraging news only two days ahead of US non-farm payrolls. The better-than-expected jobs data buoyed [...]
Lloyds outshines forecasts as it powers back to profit August 4, 2010 LLOYDS Banking Group said yesterday it had powered back to profit over the first half of the year, in what analysts dubbed “the most attractive turnaround story in the European banking sector”. Lloyds raked in a pre-tax profit of £1.6bn over the six months to June, turning around a £3.96bn loss in the same period [...]
StanChart slumps despite record half August 4, 2010 STANDARD Chartered saw its share price tumble yesterday despite posting its tenth successive half of record profits. The hike in income failed to match some analyst forecasts and sent the shares down closing 3.1 per cent lower at 1,804p, with analysts pointing to hedge funds shifting to other banks. Standard Chartered reported first half profit [...]
Santander scoops 318 RBS branches after £4.5bn boost August 4, 2010 SPANISH giant Santander fired a warning shot across the bows of UK lenders yesterday, agreeing to buy 318 branches from Royal Bank of Scotland and preparing to reshuffle its global operations. Santander will become the fourth-largest bank on the high street after it takes over the outlets from RBS for £1.7bn. The deal, due to [...]
HSBC USA under investigation for its money laundering policies August 4, 2010 AMERICAN authorities are investigating the US division of banking group HSBC over its compliance with anti-money laundering procedures, according to regulatory papers. HSBC USA stated it has received subpoenas and other requests for information as part of the probe in a filing to the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). The bank is the subject [...]
Lloyds Group August 4, 2010 SAME script, different cast. Eric Daniels is still in the role of greedy banker, but the morally outraged chorus is now played by Messrs Cameron, Osborne and Cable. “Lend to every two-bit small business that asks for cash,” they chant, with just as much zeal as their predecessors, Brown, Darling and Mandelson. Of course, they [...]
SocGen beats forecasts as profits treble August 4, 2010 French bank Societe Generale yesterday warned the economic recovery was still fragile, with moderate growth prospects in Europe, after it beat forecasts with over a three-fold leap in second-quarter net profit. The bank, which last month easily passed a Europe-wide stress test with a Tier 1 capital ratio of 10 per cent, said it was [...]
