Swedish carmaker Saab says it can’t afford wages June 23, 2011 LOSS-MAKING Swedish carmaker Saab said yesterday it couldn’t pay its employees wages as it had not obtained the short-term funding it needs. Unions for workers at Saab, which has made losses for the last two decades, said they would send a formal demand for payment on Monday if their members had not received their wages [...]
AirAsia inks £11bn deal with Airbus June 23, 2011 AirAsia thundered into the Paris Air Show with a record order for 200 revamped A320neo jets on Thursday — an $18.2bn (£11bn) deal that makes the Malaysian firm Airbus’s largest airline. AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes, who is also trying to invest in West Ham, flew into France overnight to sign off on what one Paris [...]
Arena says it is considering sale June 23, 2011 THE UK’s largest racecourse operator Arena Leisure yesterday confirmed it is considering a sale of the company. Last year billionaire property investors David and Simon Reuben raised their stake in Arena Leisure to a level just shy of 30 per cent, which was expected to trigger a takeover bid for the company. It is thought [...]
Vale scraps its plan to sell shares in its fertiliser arm June 23, 2011 BRAZILIAN miner Vale said yesterday it has scrapped plans to sell stock in its fertiliser division, and now aims to take the unit private by buying up the share it does not already own. Vale plans to pay up to 2.2bn reais (£870m) to buy out minority investors of Vale Fertilizantes, whose main asset is [...]
Cost cuts help revenues at Norcros June 23, 2011 British shower and tile maker Norcros said its full-year profit tripled helped by demand for new products and cost cuts. Adjusted pre-tax profit for the year ended 31 March was £10.2m, compared with £3.4m in the year-ago period and revenue rose 15.6 per cent to £196.1m. Norcros said it would pay a final dividend of [...]
Profits up at Jet2 owner Dart June 23, 2011 Aviation and distribution group Dart, which owns Jet2, said yesterday that pre-tax profits rose by 18 per cent to £26.2m, and raised its dividend to 0.83p per share. Profitability increased in aviation, primarily due to increasing load factors, but decreased in distribution due to start-up costs at the new North West distribution centre and the [...]
ALTERNATIVE MANAGER OF THE YEAR | The Shortlist day 5 June 23, 2011 Alternative fund managers represent one of the fastest-growing and most in demand areas of investment management. Demand for hedge funds from institutional investors is climbing rapidly thanks to their above inflation returns and low correlation to stock and bond markets. The global industry is now worth more than £1.2 trillion and looks set to shape [...]
DEALMAKER OF THE YEAR June 23, 2011 Recessions are when reputations are made, they say, and that has been true in the world of fund managers. While some have battened down the hatches, the ones on our list have seen opportunity in crisis, and pushed ahead with flotations and expansions, or have just taken the chance to expand. All are stars in [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 23, 2011 Hydrodec The industrial oil re-refining group has appointed former Betfair director Andrew Black to the board as a non-executive director, in his first public company directorship since leaving the online gaming group he co-founded in 1998. Black, who made a reported £300m on Betfair’s float when the business entered the FTSE 250 in October 2010, [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS June 23, 2011 RIO TINTO Citi rates the mining major as a “buy” with a target price of £52, driven by a recovery in earnings from its diamonds and minerals (D&M) group combined with the leverage to iron ore prices, as the wave of supply struggles to reach markets. D&M’s contribution to the group had fallen from 30 per [...]
