Icahn in hostile offer for metals December 6, 2011 BILLIONAIRE investor Carl Icahn went hostile with his $1.73bn (£1.1bn) bid to buy Commercial Metals yesterday, a day after the metals recycler rejected his buy-out attempt. Icahn, who owns about a 10 per cent stake in Commercial Metals, said he will start a tender offer and will require the support of at least 40 per cent [...]
Kraft axes 200 jobs at Cadbury December 6, 2011 UP TO 200 jobs will go at US food group Kraft’s Cadbury plants over the next year, as part of a reorganisation that will see the company split into two. The firm admitted yesterday that redeployments and voluntary redundancies would hit sites in Bournville, Chirk and Marlbrook from next March – but said it would also [...]
India fails bid to censor web controversies December 6, 2011 INDIA has called for web giants Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo to screen content uploaded by internet users. The world’s largest democracy unsuccessfully urged the social networking sites to remove material that might “offend Indian sensibilities”. Kapil Sibal, India’s telecoms and information technology minister, met with executives from these companies earlier this week. He specifically [...]
Internet domains ending in .xxx now available to general public December 6, 2011 WEB domain names ending in .xxx were made available for purchase by the general public yesterday despite ongoing legal efforts to foil the move. Until now the .xxx pages, of which around 100,000 have been sold, were reserved for big brands. The first sites went live in September. Stuart Lawley, chief executive of ICM Registry, said: [...]
Job firm’s FD sold shares before alert December 6, 2011 THE FINANCE director of Michael Page sold £2.25m of shares in the struggling City recruiter fewer than three weeks before it issued a profit warning. Stephen Puckett and his wife, Amanda, sold nearly 595,000 shares on 17 and 18 November. They were not the only ones to cash in as Charles-Henri Dumon, managing director for [...]
Electra mulls asset raid amid banking shake-up December 6, 2011 PRIVATE equity house Electra is considering a raid on bank assets as lenders deleverage amid the Eurozone crisis and tougher regulatory demands. Electra will look healthy businesses, as well as those with a “bad balance sheet”, chief investment officer Alex Fortescue told City A.M. The buyout group is not interested in full-scale turnaround deals, however. [...]
Private equity houses in China investment link December 6, 2011 THREE major private equity houses have agreed an investment link-up with China Development Bank, a power-house of the Eastern economy. Permira, KKR and TPG Capital yesterday announced strategic agreements with CDB, which has also launched a foreign investment platform. Permira will become sole European private equity partner to CDB Capital, the Chinese bank’s asset manager. [...]
House prices fall again in weak market December 6, 2011 HOUSE prices fell in November, reversing October’s gain as the market remained unpredictably choppy, Halifax announced yesterday. The bank’s monthly house price index showed a fall of 0.9 per cent in the month, taking the annual fall to one per cent and the quarterly decline to 0.6 per cent. The fall compares with a 1.2 [...]
Consumer confidence gives little to celebrate December 6, 2011 AFTER Mervyn King’s dire warnings on the economic situation, I wish I could present more positive news on consumer confidence – but the November data from the YouGov HEAT report paints rather a bleak picture. The index is at its lowest since March, job security has fallen to its worst level in two years, perceived [...]
Asia hit by Eurozone’s slowdown December 6, 2011 ASIAN economic growth is slowing as demand from crisis-hit Europe declines, the Asia Development Bank (ADB) warned yesterday. The ADB cut east Asia’s growth forecasts for 2012 to 7.2 per cent, down from 7.5 per cent predicted in September. “The turmoil emanating from Europe poses a growing danger to trade and finance,” the report stated. [...]
