BAE wins £1.6bn deal to build Saudi airplanes May 23, 2012 BRITISH engineering got a boost yesterday when BAE Systems secured a £1.6bn deal to equip and train the Saudi Arabian military. BAE said it will supply 22 new Hawk advanced trainer jets, most of which will be made in Britain, as well as 55 Swiss-made Pilatus aircraft and other training and support services. The contract [...]
Mike Lynch to leave HP amid 27,000 job cuts May 23, 2012 HEWLETT-Packard yesterday unveiled a restructure which will see Autonomy founder Mike Lynch leave the company and 27,000 employees lose their jobs. British entrepreneur Mike Lynch, dubbed the British Bill Gates, is a founder of tech company Autonomy, which was bought by HP in August for £6.2bn. At the time it was the UK’s most valuable [...]
PTT beats Shell offer for Cove in bidding war May 23, 2012 THAI energy giant PTT yesterday trumped Shell’s offer for Cove Energy with a £1.22bn bid. The board of Cove recommended the new offer – equivalent to 240p per share – leaving Shell to decide on whether to try to outgun PTT. Cove has an 8.5 per cent stake in massive gas finds offshore northern Mozambique and [...]
Shares in LSE group fall after major Italian banks cash out May 23, 2012 SHARES in the London Stock Exchange sank seven per cent yesterday after two Italian banks sold their stakes at the bottom end of the price range offered. UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, the third and fourth-largest shareholders respectively, sold a combined 11.5 per cent stake at 960p a share, just days after they were downgraded by [...]
Spain completes €9bn rescue of Bankia, but debt woes continue May 23, 2012 SPAIN said yesterday its rescue of problem lender Bankia would cost at least €9bn (£7.2bn), while also saying that it is seeking ways to help its highly indebted regions meet huge refinancing needs. The country’s weak banks and overspending regions are at the heart of the European debt crisis due to concerns that expensive bail-outs [...]
JURY DEALS BLOW TO ORACLE IN GOOGLE CASE May 23, 2012 GOOGLE’S Android mobile platform has not infringed Oracle’s patents, a California jury decided yesterday, in a boon for its chairman Eric Schmidt. The verdict puts an indefinite hold on Oracle’s quest for damages in a legal fight between the two Silicon Valley giants over smartphone technology.
Barclays loses $650m on sale of BlackRock May 23, 2012 BARCLAYS lost $650m (£414m) on its sale of a $6.1bn stake in US fund manager BlackRock yesterday after it scrambled to offload the shares to comply with incoming capital regulations. The sale, which was managed by a list of 36 book runners led by Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, valued the shares [...]
A deal that shows Europe’s uneven playing field in action May 23, 2012 THREE weeks ago, George Osborne told other EU finance ministers that he was not prepared to sign up to capital rules that would make him look “like an idiot” due to their huge loopholes for French and German banks. One week ago, Osborne signed up to those rules. So while Barclays took a £400m hit [...]
Ruling suggests £5bn tax refund May 23, 2012 A SUPREME Court ruling that the government had breached an aspect of EU law yesterday brought the prospect of £5bn-worth of tax refunds closer for companies. The ruling means that British American Tobacco, lead claimant in the case alongside five other multi-national companies, now has the right to recover any tax wrongly paid extended back [...]
RIM loses head of global sales May 23, 2012 THE head of global sales at Research In Motion has left to take on a leadership role in another industry, the BlackBerry maker said last night. London-based Patrick Spence was a 14 year company veteran widely considered a rising star for RIM. He was promoted to the global sales role in July last year after [...]
