Pirates break box office record May 22, 2011 The latest Pirates of the Caribbean film made $346.4m (£213.2m) in its global box office debut this weekend, falling short of forecasts but still making it the biggest opening weekend this year. Disney said “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” set a record as the highest international movie opening of all time, with $256.3m [...]
Why company chairmen face an increasing level of investor scrutiny May 22, 2011 THE 2011 AGM season is already delivering some stinging blows for company boards. Recent meetings at the UK’s biggest companies have seen shareholder ire directed at remuneration reports and occasionally directors. But chairmen have also taken flak for their company’s direction and performance over the past year. Prudential shareholders rapped Harvey McGrath last week for [...]
Vedanta aims to resurrect Konkola float May 22, 2011 INDIAN-FOCUSED miner Vedanta is looking to revive its float plans for copper miner Konkola in the coming months, after shelving the IPO in November due to market volatility. Vedanta, which holds a 79.4 per cent stake in Konkola, aims to time the float to cash in on the commodities boom while steering clear of lingering [...]
Sarkozy could learn from Internet billionaires May 22, 2011 NICOLAS Sarkozy has invited the great and good of the digital industry to pop round to Paris for a few days this week to chew the fat before the G8 summit. And I’m going along for the ride. You think Sarko would be busy, what with all those red carpets to shampoo in Deauville and [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS May 22, 2011 AGGREKO Goldman Sachs rates the power rental company a “buy” and has added the firm to its conviction buy list with a raised target price of 2482p. The broker thinks now is the key time to invest as a result of the favourable pricing environment caused by power shortages in Japan, bolstering the firm’s already [...]
Daimler rules out EADS sale May 22, 2011 Daimler has ruled out the sale of a minority stake in aerospace group EADS to German suppliers and sees a role instead for Germany in the deal, the carmaker’s finance chief told a German newspaper. Bodo Uebber, who is also chairman of EADS, poured cold water on speculation that a group of suppliers such as [...]
Bargain bid for Barnes & Noble May 22, 2011 Cable TV pioneer John Malone likes a bargain, and his $17 (£10.47) a share bid for Barnes & Noble is already being slammed for undervaluing the largest US bookstore chain. Shares of Barnes & Noble jumped about 30 per cent to close at $18.33 on Friday as Wall Street analysts argued the company was worth [...]
Shell to keep up deep-water drill May 22, 2011 Royal Dutch Shell sees deep-water oil drilling continuing in the future and as of next year will produce more gas than oil, its chief executive was quoted as saying yesterday. Asked how high the price of oil needed to be for Shell to profit from its investment of $30bn (£18bn) in 2011, Peter Voser said: [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS May 22, 2011 AMEC The international engineering and project management group has appointed Deloitte’s John Connolly as its new chairman, to succeed Jock Green-Armytage. Connelly will retire from his current role as chief executive of Deloitte UK and global chairman of Deloitte Touche Tohamatsu on 31 May and will join the Amex board on 1 June. Connelly is [...]
Blue chips likely to dip over Greek debt May 22, 2011 A cautious mood is set to prevail in the markets this morning, with anxiety over the on-going Greece debt crisis and crucial upcoming economic data likely to dominate traders’ mindsets. In out-of-hours trading, GFT is forecasting the UK index to open down 16 points from last week’s close, at around 5,932. The German DAX is [...]
