Meissner hires co-heads for BofAML Europe June 25, 2012 CHRISTIAN Meissner, the global corporate and investment banking head at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has appointed two of his former charges to become co-heads of the bank’s investment banking arm for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Meissner is hiring Diego de Giorgi from Goldman Sachs and is promoting Bob Elfring, with whom he [...]
Impact of immigration on the labour market is exaggerated June 25, 2012 IMMIGRANTS are better-educated than their UK counterparts and less likely to be in social housing, research from the London School of Economics revealed yesterday. The study from the Centre for Economic Performance follows a speech from Labour leader Ed Miliband last week in which he argued that worrying about immigration should inform policy more. The [...]
BP to sell $1bn US gas fields to Linn Energy June 25, 2012 BP ANNOUNCED yesterday it has agreed to sell its stake in two US natural gas fields to Linn Energy for $1.03bn (£642m) as part of the oil giant’s $38bn disposal programme to help pay for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The sale of its Jonah and Pinedale upstream operations in Wyoming will bring [...]
Both Spain and Cyprus request aid for banks June 25, 2012 CYPRUS became the fifth Eurozone country to extend its palm and ask for bailout cash yesterday, just hours after Spanish authorities officially requested more assistance for its struggling banking sector. The idyllic island – also the Eurozone’s smallest economy – had earlier seen its credit rating slashed to junk status by Fitch. Rating agency Fitch [...]
Markets knocked by Eurozone concerns June 25, 2012 EUROZONE markets took a hammering yesterday, while bond yields shot up and oil prices fell, suggesting market unease with the continuing Eurozone crisis. Across Europe indices fell: the FTSE was down 0.5 per cent, the French CAC dipped one per cent, the German DAX slid 1.2 per cent, the Spanish IBEX closed 1.8 per cent [...]
France predicts budget shortfall June 25, 2012 AN AUDIT of French public finances is likely to show a budget shortfall of €7bn (£5.6bn) to €10bn that needs to be addressed for France to meet its public deficit target, finance minister Pierre Moscovici said yesterday. President Francois Hollande’s five-week-old Socialist government is preparing to raise some taxes and trim spending in order to ensure [...]
Greek finance minister resigns June 25, 2012 GREECE’s new finance minister resigned yesterday, throwing the government’s drive to soften the terms of an international bailout into confusion less than a week after it took office. Vassilis Rapanos, 64, chairman of the National Bank of Greece, was rushed to hospital on Friday before he could be sworn in, complaining of abdominal pain, nausea [...]
It’s far from all over for the bulge bracket banks June 25, 2012 ONE of the many surprises of the Walgreens pharmacy chain bid for 45 per cent of Boots was the choice of advisers. For sure, Walgreens had bulge bracket firm Goldman Sachs on the case but it also took advice from the independent firm Lazard. And on the other side of the deal, Alliance Boots and [...]
Grexit warning as values jump at Moulton firm June 25, 2012 JON Moulton’s private equity house warned over the impact of the Eurozone turmoil and Greece’s expected exit from the single currency as its first fund posted a 25 jump in valuations. Turnaround firm Better Capital expects to take advantage of the rocky European markets to negotiate more deals and is making changes at its current [...]
Microsoft buys $1.2bn Yammer June 25, 2012 MICROSOFT yesterday finally admitted it was buying online networking firm Yammer for $1.2bn (£770.5m), allowing the tech giant to offer a social network to corporate customers. Four-year-old Yammer has 5m users of its private, in-company social networks and counts Deloitte and Ford among its clients. The service should fill a gap that Microsoft was struggling [...]
