Chemring profit tumbles 42pc January 24, 2013 Defence equipment manufacturer Chemring said yesterday that pre-tax profit sank 42 per cent over the year to October, in a difficult 12 months that saw profit warnings and failed takeover talks. The company, which makes defence equipment such as flares and explosive device detectors, said underlying pre-tax profit fell to £70.1m, down from £120.2m over [...]
London Mining beats targets January 24, 2013 London Mining yesterday hailed better-than-expected output over 2012, as it continued to ramp up operations at its Marampa mine in Sierra Leone. The iron ore miner posted full-year production of 1.63m wet metric tonnes, which beat targets set last January. Over the fourth quarter, production at the flagship West African mine hit 546,000 wet metric [...]
Oz consortium for Balfour Beatty January 24, 2013 Infrastructure group Balfour Beatty has formed a consortium with Transfield Services to target government contracts to maintain highways on the east coast of Australia. London-listed Balfour has joined forces with the Australian company to win state outsourced contracts which would include maintaining services such as street lighting, bridges, drain clearing and road and footway resurfacing.
City Moves for 25 January 2013 | Who’s switching jobs January 24, 2013 Vestra Wealth Management Heinz Schmid has been appointed fixed income strategist in the wealth management firm’s investment team. He joins from Investec, and was previously head of UK fixed income at BNP Paribas. Schmid has also managed HSBC Investment Management’s sterling fixed income team, and held a number of roles at UBS. Centrus Advisors Geoff [...]
Best of the brokers January 24, 2013 DARTY UBS has slashed its rating on the electrical goods retailer – formerly known as Kesa – from “buy” to “neutral”, citing an increasingly competitive French electricals market. “Darty requires an improvement in French profits above and beyond the cost savings we have factored in,” the bank says, despite increasing the target price on the [...]
New Year rally continues as FTSE surges again and short sellers exit January 24, 2013 BRITAIN’S top share index rallied on yesterday, outperforming its global peers and extending its best start to the year since 1989, boosted by strong global economic data and deal chatter for heavyweight Vodafone. The FTSE 100 surged 62.27 points, or 1.1 per cent, to 6,264.91 points, a level not seen since May 2008, taking its [...]
Wall St inches higher despite Apple’s plunge January 24, 2013 THE smallest of gains gave the Standard & Poor’s 500 its seventh straight winning day yesterday, but the index failed to hold above the 1,500 line, restrained by Apple’s worst day in more than four years. Apple slid 12.4 per cent to $450.50 a day after it posted revenue that missed Wall Street’s forecast as [...]
Official policy of debasing sterling is selling off England by the pound January 24, 2013 ABOUT two years ago, as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, I used the title of the classic 1970s Genesis album Selling England by the Pound to draw attention to the way in which the weakness of sterling was pushing up our inflation rate. Between mid-2007 and early 2009, sterling depreciated by over 25 [...]
Brussels and Westminster both fail to offer the public direct democracy January 24, 2013 DAVID Cameron’s promised referendum on Europe will be the first in my lifetime, which began the year after the 1975 vote to remain in the Common Market. So to me the Prime Minister’s new commitment for a vote feels like both a victory and a defeat. It is a historic decision: after more than four [...]
Incentive to work will be dampened by pension reform January 24, 2013 THE coalition received bad news this week, as figures revealed the UK added £15.4bn to its debt pile in December 2012 – up from £14.8bn in the same month in 2011. The chancellor will now be forced to ask ministers to prepare further cuts for 2014-15. But the problem is not just fiscal. It’s political. [...]
