Cameron is slammed for female board quota call February 9, 2012 A SUGGESTION by David Cameron that quotas could be introduced to force an increase in the number of women on UK boards has been met with criticism, after the Prime Minister suggested that the country’s economic recovery is being held back by a lack of women in top jobs. Speaking at a summit in Stockholm, [...]
BarCap wins accreditation on Xstrata February 9, 2012 BARCLAYS Capital was yesterday granted accreditation from Thomson Reuters for its role as an investment banking adviser to Xstrata in its £56bn merger deal with Glencore. Its inclusion as an adviser is massively important to the bank, elevating it from eighth to sixth place in the Thomson Reuters M&A league table, as it seeks eventual [...]
Pepsi plans to slash 8,700 jobs in cost-cutting drive February 9, 2012 PEPSICO chief executive Indra Nooyi has laid out a radical plan to turn around the company’s North American soft drink business by cutting 8,700 jobs and ramping up advertising spend by $500m – at the expense of short-term earnings. The firm reported a fourth quarter profit of $1.42bn (£897m), up from $1.37bn a year earlier [...]
Oracle to pay $1.9bn for Taleo February 9, 2012 Business management software maker Oracle is planning to buy Taleo, a maker of web-based software for recruiting employees, for about $1.9bn (£1.2bn) as a war heats up for control over the fast-growing cloud computing market. The Taleo deal value of $46 a share offers an 18 per cent premium to Taleo’s Wednesday close of $38.94.
Tata Steel posts quarterly loss February 9, 2012 India’s Tata Steel, the world’s seventh biggest steelmaker, yesterday posted an unexpected quarterly loss, its first in more than two years, as higher raw material costs and weak demand in Europe hurt margins. Tata Steel reported a net loss of 6.87bn rupees for its fiscal third quarter ended December, compared with a net profit of [...]
Ceres delays IPO until next week February 9, 2012 Biofuels developer Ceres has delayed its expected initial public offering until next week, IFR reported yesterday, just a day after reducing its expected price range to between $16 and $17 per share from between $21 and $23 earlier. Last month, the company had said it expected to raise about $97.8m from its IPO of 5m [...]
Three bidders left in Peacocks sale February 9, 2012 Edinburgh Woollen Mills has pulled out of talks to buy Peacocks, a source said last night, leaving three potential bidders in the race to buy the collapsed retailer out of administration. KPMG, the administrators to Peacocks, is expected to make a final decision early next week.
Data demand lifts Vodafone but sales slide February 9, 2012 TOUGH trading in Spain and Italy dragged Vodafone’s third quarter group revenues down 2.3 per cent to £11.6bn, causing the mobile phone operator to fall short of forecasts. Spanish revenues fell 8.8 per cent – albeit an improvement on last quarter’s drop of 9.3 per cent – to £1.1bn, while Vodafone fared worse in Italy, [...]
It’s complicated: Facebook is in a relationship with Zynga February 9, 2012 FACEBOOK has added 26 new documents to its filing with the SEC – originally submitted last week in preparation for the firm’s IPO – which outline its relationship with Zynga. Facebook last week disclosed that 12 per cent of its 2011 revenues came from the gaming company, sending Zynga shares rocketing 17 per cent. However, [...]
Alibaba suspends share trading as major announcement looms February 9, 2012 SHARES in Alibaba.com were suspended from trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday as the website’s parent Alibaba Group prepared a statement. The Chinese e-commerce giant is reportedly planning to buy back the 40 per cent stake Yahoo holds in it, and has been moving towards raising a $3bn (£1.89bn) loan for this purpose. [...]
