Travis Perkins restores dividends July 2, 2010 BUILDERS’ merchant Travis Perkins has said it will restore dividends after better-than-expected first half results. The company, which also sells DIY products, said revenue for the six months to 30 June increased 4.7 per cent with sales at stores open over a year up 3.4 per cent. It said: “In May, we reported a strong [...]
Ageas in £215m deal for Kwik-Fit insurance arm July 2, 2010 Kwik-Fit Insurance Services is being sold for £215m to Belgian-based insurance group Ageas. The insurance intermediary – currently owned by private equity company PAI Partners – will contribute over 600,000 customers to Ageas, giving it a customer base of 1.6m in Britain. Ageas chief executive Bart De Smet said: “I welcome this acquisition on its [...]
RBS completes sale of Sempra to JP Morgan July 2, 2010 ROYAL Bank of Scotland (RBS) has completed the sale of its metals, oil and European energy business RBS Sempra Commodities to US bank JP Morgan in a $1.6bn (£1.1bn) deal. RBS was ordered by the European Commission last year to sell offload assets after being bailed out by the UK government. The bank was also [...]
Office hires advisors for possible sale July 2, 2010 BRITISH fashion and sports footwear retailer Office has hired advisers, which could lead to a sale of the business. The company – owned by West Coast Capital, the private equity vehicle of Scottish entrepreneur Tom Hunter – said on Friday it had appointed corporate adviser Hawkpoint in the UK and boutique investment firm Financo in [...]
Battle of the broadcasters – BT vs SKY July 1, 2010 • BT yesterday attacked its major TV rival, offering Sky Sports 1 for as little as £6.99 a month • Sky pre-empted the BT move by hiking its wholesale prices, hitting the telecom firm hard IAN Livingstone, BT chief executive, could be staring down a £100m-a-year black hole after announcing a ground-breaking football package. The [...]
Miners agree Australian tax July 1, 2010 THE AUSTRALIAN government has settled a long-running spat with mining firms over the introduction of a mining super-profits tax. Prime minister Julia Gillard announced this morning that profits on iron ore and coal mining in the country will be taxed at 30 per cent, down from the 40 per cent mooted by her predecessor Kevin [...]
The real causes of the crisis of 2008 July 1, 2010 FOR all the latest furore surrounding bankers’ bonuses and the rest, we have yet again lost sight of how the crisis actually began, and politicians and regulators’ central role in promoting it. There were many factors, of course, with private institutions often behaving foolishly – but sub-prime lending, the crisis’ central catalyst, was promoted by [...]
Double-dip fears resurge July 1, 2010 FEARS of a global slump back into recession heightened yesterday after a slew of negative data showed manufacturing output slowed across the world and pending home sales in the US crashed by a third. Tokyo’s Nikkei stock index tumbled to its lowest level since 2005, while the FTSE 100 plunged to its lowest level in [...]
Aviva aims for clarity with its £8bn forecast July 1, 2010 INSURANCE firm Aviva will tell investors today it expects to boost the amount of capital it generates by at least 30 per cent this year to £1.3bn. The firm will also say its existing book will return £8bn in the next five years, in an effort to clarify its money-making potential to investors. Aviva is [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 1, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES GENERAL ELECTRIC CHIEF VENTS FRUSTRATION OVER CHINA The GE chief executive Jeff Immelt told Italian industrialists at a dinner on Wednesday that he was worried about the way Beijing was treating foreign companies. “I am not sure that in the end they want any of us to win or any of us to [...]
