Nautilus Minerals made target of hostile Canadian investor January 8, 2013 JUNIOR stockmarket-listed miner Nautilus Minerals yesterday said it had been made aware of an unsolicited takeover bid from a little-known Canadian investor, sending its shares on a sharp upward spiral. The miner, which hopes to develop the world’s first underwater copper-gold mine off Papua New Guinea, said that it was made aware that an individual [...]
Balfour Beatty sees order book shift towards support services January 8, 2013 FOLLOWING its executive reshuffle earlier this week, FTSE 250-listed firm Balfour Beatty yesterday said its order book was shifting towards support services and infrastructure. In a trading update, the infrastructure group said that last year’s performance would be in line with expectations. The order book jumped to around £15bn at the end of the year – [...]
BG starts Brazil field production January 8, 2013 Blue chip BG Group has kicked off production at the Sapinhoá field in a block offshore Brazil, four and a half years after its discovery. The field is one of BG’s “big five” discoveries in the pre-salt Santos Basin. BG Group owns 30 per cent of the licence – Brazilian state-run energy behemoth Petrobras operates [...]
Rolls-Royce grows nuclear biz January 8, 2013 Rolls-Royce has moved to expand its nuclear energy services business with the acquisition of US-based PKMJ Technical Services. The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, of the nuclear engineering services firm will provide a footprint in the US nuclear services market for the FTSE 100 power systems company. Rolls-Royce also said yesterday it had won a [...]
Pellet output down at Ferrexpo January 8, 2013 Ferrexpo yesterday posted a slight drop in total pellet production for last year – down to 9.7m tonnes from 9.8m tonnes in 2011 – due to “lower purchases of third party concentrate”. However, the FTSE 250-listed resources company recorded a 2.6 per cent year on year increase in pellet production from its own iron ore [...]
UK food prices propping up shopping costs January 8, 2013 FOOD prices remained well above their December 2011 levels last month, despite creeping down marginally compared to November. The annual rate of food price inflation was 4.1 per cent in December, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said this morning, down from 4.6 per cent in the year to November. This fall comes off the back of a [...]
Post-breakup Scotland would rely on Bank, says City analyst January 8, 2013 EVEN if Scotland left the UK, the Bank of England would remain guarantor of the Scottish financial system, Capital Economics predicted yesterday. First Minister Alex Salmond plans to keep Scotland on pound sterling even if the country left the union, meaning that it would be likely to negotiate a deal maintaining the Bank’s backstop position, the [...]
UK public still expects above target inflation January 8, 2013 THE UK public is still expecting inflation to come in well above target over the year ahead, according to a poll from YouGov out yesterday. Prices are expected to increase 2.7 per cent over 2013, the YouGov poll for December revealed, slightly down from the 2.8 per cent expectation the public held in November but still significantly [...]
Insurers say extreme weather and slump are a vicious circle January 8, 2013 THE PROLONGED economic downturn is eating into the capacity of countries to deal with extreme weather and environmental problems, which is in turn adding to business malaise, according to a report out yesterday. Difficult times in the world economy have driven money and attention away from abating climate change, and counteracting its harmful effects, the World [...]
Ofcom crackdown on surge in nuisance calls January 8, 2013 NUISANCE silent phone calls received by homes and businesses almost doubled last year according to figure published yesterday, prompting regulator Ofcom to promise tougher action to stamp out the practice. Silent and abandoned phone calls are associated with automatic diallers used in call centres punching in numbers at random. The calls are silent when they [...]
