Cable risks a split with his line on strikes June 26, 2011 BUSINESS Secretary Vince Cable said yesterday he did not think it would be necessary to reform strike legislation and stressed that he had no plans to do so. “We’re not looking at that, and we’re not planning it, and we certainly don’t want to go down that road,” he said on Pienaar’s Politics on BBC [...]
Center Parcs owner agrees financing deal June 26, 2011 US private equity house Blackstone has embarked on a £1bn refinancing programme of Center Parcs, the forest village holiday business it owns. The restructure of the company’s debt will end speculation that the firm had been considering putting the business up for sale. It will also provide Center Parks with enough capital to build a [...]
Pimco boss El-Erian pleas with DC to avoid default June 26, 2011 ANY DEFAULT by the US government would have “catastrophic” legal consequences, Pimco chief executive Mohamed El-Erian said yesterday, urging lawmakers to reach an agreement over the $14.3 trillion (£8.9 trillion) debt ceiling. “We would be in the land of the unpredictable,” El-Erian said, if even a short-term “technical” default was allowed to happen. Such an [...]
BNP Paribas launches fund solution June 26, 2011 French lender BNP Paribas has today become one of the first financial service providers to launch a hedge fund product to meet strict new European rules. The bank’s asset management division, BNP Paribas Securities Services, has launched a master-feeder fund solution that meets new Ucits IV rules. The regulations, a set of tough new European [...]
Olympic tickets sold out June 26, 2011 London Olympic organisers put “sold out” signs over a swathe of sports yesterday with only tickets for soccer, volleyball and greco-roman and freestyle wrestling still available in a second round of sales in the UK. A spokeswoman said more than 130,000 people who had failed to secure tickets in a hugely oversubscribed first ballot were [...]
Investors set to quiz SAB Miller on deal June 26, 2011 SABMiller faces retaliation from shareholders over the UK brewing giant’s proposed US$9.98bn takeover bid for Australian peer Foster’s Group. SAB put in a $4.90-a-share (£3) offer for the Australian brewer last week but was rebuffed after Fosters said in a statement released on the Australian stock exchange that the proposal “significantly undervalues” the company. Several [...]
The amber nectar isn’t hard to swallow June 26, 2011 INVESTORS’ reaction to SABMiller’s rejected £6.2bn bid for Foster’s last week said it all – the brewer’s shares fell 3.6 per cent as Foster’s branded the bid as too low, while the target’s stock rocketed to a nine-month high, overtaking the offer and making a sweetened offer almost a necessity. With a close-to 50 per [...]
Horta-Osorio to sound a sunnier tone for Lloyds June 26, 2011 LLOYDS chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio will detail a plan to lead investors to “a better place” for the bank when he unveils a strategic review on Thursday. Horta-Osorio will depart from the more moribund tone of late, which has seen him accused of “kitchen-sinking” the bank’s results and being overly conservative in provisions for losses. [...]
NMDC in talks for Greystone June 26, 2011 Indian state-run iron ore miner NMDC is in talks to acquirea controlling stake in mining firm Greystone Mineracao do Brasil for $1bn (£626m), according to weekend reports. NMDC is currently doing a technical, financial and legal due diligence of the iron ore mines which have reserves of 260 million tons, the report said. The $1bn [...]
PwC hires 351 paid interns June 26, 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers, the professional services firm, opens its doors this week to 351 paid interns nationwide, the largest group ever to join the firm’s summer business programme for students. There has been an 88 per cent increase in applications for summer work experience programmes and over 25 per cent of this year’s full time graduate intake [...]
