PETRA CELEBRATES MAIN MARKET MOVE WITH RECORD SALE December 21, 2011 PETRA Diamonds has achieved the highest price per carat of any rough diamond it has ever sold. The 4.8 carat blue stone was sold for $1.45m (£920,000) just hours before Petra’s shares started trading on London’s main market yesterday, graduating from Aim. Chief executive Johan Dippenaar is pictured at the Cullinan mine, where the stone [...]
ED SAATCHI SCALES UP TO SOCIAL MEDIA IPO December 21, 2011 IMAGINE logging on to Facebook and it already knows who your friends are, says Edward Saatchi, the red-headed son of the advertising legend Maurice Saatchi. This is the idea behind the “social, data-driven” networking site that is NationalField, the business world’s answer to Facebook that launched in spring 2008 as a way of connecting staff [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS December 21, 2011 CARNIVAL Deutsche Bank rates the cruise company as a “buy” with a target price of 2,650p after fourth quarter results that showed earnings per share (EPS) in line with the broker’s expectations of 28 cents. Deutsche points out that while it expected no extra stock to have been purchased following a significant buyback in the [...]
Markets hold up yet tech sector hit by slide December 21, 2011 TECHNOLOGY shares slumped yesterday and pushed the Nasdaq down one per cent after Oracle reported results that cast doubts on the sector’s health, even as broader markets closed mostly flat in a thinly traded day. Outside the Nasdaq, the market recovered from early losses as some recent fears over Europe faded. Traders tried to build [...]
FTSE seesaws lower on banks and retailers December 21, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index fell back after a volatile session yesterday, swinging back from early strong gains in low volumes, with banks seeing gains eroded, although Lloyds was boosted by a broker double upgrade. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 29.86 points, or 0.6 per cent at 5,389.74, reversing a chunk of [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS December 21, 2011 Cinven The private equity firm has made several appointments at Guardian Financial Services, the UK consolidator of closed life assurance funds acquired by Cinven in August. Jonathan Yates (pictured), formerly group finance director of Phoenix Group, joins as chief executive; Paul Dixon joins from Phoenix as chief investment officer; and Simon Davis, who previously ran [...]
AstraZeneca bets on Asia research December 21, 2011 AstraZeneca is placing new bets on drug research by signing deals with two Asian companies, just a day after suffering a double setback for two of its most important pipeline assets. Britain’s second biggest drugmaker said yesterday it had struck a global deal to co-develop a novel cancer treatment from FTSE-listed Hutchison China MediTech and [...]
20 of the world’s largest donors December 21, 2011 1 BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION US The William H Gates Foundation was created in 1994 to work to improve global health. Created with an original stock gift of $94m (£60.5m), the foundation merged with the Gates Learning Foundation in 2000 to create the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The largest philanthropic organisation in the [...]
To track or chase returns December 21, 2011 WHETHER investors should aim for alpha (beating the benchmark) or beta (tracking the benchmark) is a debate that divides investors. Here a defender of tracking beta and an advocate of chasing alpha put their respective cases. WORLDTRACK ANTHONY CHRISTODOULOU Should investors chase Alpha? In a word: no. Evidence shows that it is futile attempting to [...]
Outlook for 2012: Protecting your wealth December 21, 2011 BESTINVEST ADRIAN LOWOCK 2012 Macro outlook Weak economic growth will continue in the West, as the deleveraging process enters its third year – we are still several years away from completing this. However, any resolution in the Eurozone is likely to provide some short-term support to stockmarkets. Predictions for end of 2012 ● FTSE 100: [...]
