WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 24, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES EDF warns Hollande on nuclear plant Henri Proglio, chief executive of EDF, has warned France’s new president that he will need to discuss compensation with the nuclear power group if he presses on with plans to shut the country’s oldest atomic plant. Dow Chemical wins Kuwait damages Dow Chemical of the US has [...]
Bankia bailout bill soars again to over €15bn May 24, 2012 SPAIN’S fourth-largest lender Bankia is expected to today beg the state for more than €15bn (£12bn) to bail it out when its new management team presents a restructuring plan “The help needed to clean up the bank will be more than €15bn,” a source told Reuters last night. The bill is almost double the estimation [...]
Investors back Goldman pay May 24, 2012 Goldman Sachs shareholders yesterday approved the firm’s compensation plan for top executives and backed all 10 directors up for election at its annual meeting. Investors rejected three stockholder proposals, including a resolution urging the board to require top executives to keep 75 per cent of the stock they receive from Goldman for three years after [...]
Facebook claims could top $100m May 24, 2012 Claims by four of Wall Street’s main market makers against Nasdaq over Facebook’s botched IPO are likely to exceed $100m, as they and other traders continue to deal with thousands of problems with customer orders. The exchange operator is facing lawsuits from investors and threats of legal action from brokers. Four of the top market [...]
UK recession is worse than was first thought May 24, 2012 THE ECONOMY contracted more sharply that first thought in the opening quarter of the year, official figures showed yesterday, increasing pressure on the government to change course in an effort to boost growth. The updated GDP estimates revealed the economy contracted 0.3 per cent in the first quarter, not the 0.2 per cent shown in [...]
Excessive regulation may have stunted credit, says Bank official May 24, 2012 REGULATORS may have thwarted the supply of credit to the economy by reacting too sharply in the wake of the financial crisis, a senior Bank of England official said yesterday. Alastair Clark, who sits on the Bank’s new super-regulator, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC), said that there was a danger in strangling the sector with [...]
Tchenguiz judge says fraud agency needs more funding May 24, 2012 A SENIOR judge said yesterday the Serious Fraud Office had failed to set out a “rather simple” case clearly during an investigation into the Tchenguiz brothers and called for better funding for the agency. Judge John Thomas, who has already slated the agency for “sheer incompetence” in the case linked to the collapse of Iceland’s [...]
Germany feels the squeeze as output declines May 24, 2012 THE EUROZONE’S downturn has now hit Germany, influential survey data showed yesterday, leading economists to forecast a fall in GDP this quarter for the single currency area. Services activity in the Eurozone dropped sharply according to Markit’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) which came in at 46.5 in May, a seven-month low and well below the [...]
BBVA signals retreat from Latin American pensions businesses May 24, 2012 ONE of Spain’s largest lenders, BBVA, has announced plans to offload its South American pensions business in the latest sign of European banks’ retreat from foreign markets. BBVA said it “has decided to initiate strategic review” of two businesses, one that operates in Chile, Peru and Colombia and another targeting just Mexico. The bank said that it [...]
Moody’s cuts its ratings on three Swedish banks May 24, 2012 CREDIT rating agency Moody’s last night downgraded the long-term debt and deposit ratings for three Swedish banks: Nordea, Svenska Handelsbanken and Landshypotek. Moody’s blamed the banks’ high reliance on wholesale funding, modest profitability and risks to asset quality due to the EU export-oriented Swedish economy for the move. However, Moody’s emphasised that the Swedish banks [...]
