After the Nvidelity comes the Huangover. Jensen Huang joins long list who confused boardroom and bedroom
Founders’ stake gives them $1.2bn windfall May 10, 2011 Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis will probably still be out celebrating this morning. Their company, Joltid, owns a stake which has been valued at $1.2bn (£730m) in Microsoft’s eye-watering $8.5bn swoop; to be paid in cold, hard cash. The sale is the second windfall the two have received from their online video calling [...]
What tech giant may have in store for its new $8.5bn toy May 10, 2011 THE adjectives “stunned” and “shocked” have become commonplace in a technology world where mammoth valuations are almost de rigueur; Facebook worth more than $60bn, Groupon rejecting a $6bn offer, LinkedIn valued at up to $3.3bn. But even in this context Microsoft’s $8.5bn swoop for Skype has raised eyebrows and dropped jaws. Analysts have been falling [...]
Spending this much on a telco is absurd May 10, 2011 MICROSOFT is splashing the cash again in its war with Google, a war of attrition it is losing badly. No-one denies that the software giant needs to use the $50bn it has sitting in cash and short-term investments to buy new companies. Whether Skype is the right buy at $8.5bn all comes down to whether [...]
BG Group says North Sea tax to cost £162m May 10, 2011 BG GROUP yesterday disappointed investors with a 25 per cent year-on-year drop in quarterly earnings, after taking a $265m (£162m) hit from the North Sea tax hike and reporting a five per cent production drop. Chief executive Frank Chapman was scathing about the government’s surprise levy on energy, which taxes gas firms on the same [...]
Coalition makes 200 changes to the tax code May 10, 2011 THE coalition government has made 200 changes to the tax code since taking power last year – despite promising to simplify the tax system. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) said the huge number of changes had created a “compliance headache for accountants, businesses and individuals”. Chancellor George Osborne set up a new Office [...]
Pace tumbles after warning on its profits May 10, 2011 SHARES in TV tech firm Pace crashed 39 per cent yesterday after an unscheduled trading statement warned that profits for the year would be worse than forecast. The profit warning wiped nearly £300m from Pace’s market value and led to speculation that the firm is vulnerable to a takeover approach or management shake-up (see Analyst [...]
Firm’s founder takes a hit May 10, 2011 DAVID Hood stands to lose the most from yesterday’s profit warning at Pace, with his 16.5 per cent stake taking a heavy hit in yesterday’s 39 per cent share price collapse. Hood stepped down from the firm in 1997, having nursed it from a niche modem sales outfit in Shipley in 1982 to a FTSE [...]
CSR says new chips will help in smartphone race May 10, 2011 CHIPMAKER CSR, whose planned takeover of Zoran was thrown into doubt yesterday, has said support for its new wifi-bluetooth chip and contracts for its GPS products from Samsung and Huawei will help it recover in the smartphone market. The positive news on its product pipeline yesterday outweighed a weaker-than-expected forecast for the current quarter and [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: WHAT’S NEXT FOR PACE? May 10, 2011 JONATHAN IMLAH | COLLINS STEWART The company needs to focus on execution, and turning around the European business, which has underperformed. I don’t think it will be looking to do anything revolutionary. Aside from this, there’s not much it can do about pressures from outside, for example a board change or takeover approach. ARUN GEORGE [...]
Resolution life sales jump by 52 per cent May 10, 2011 RESOLUTION, the buyer and consolidator of UK life insurance assets, sold £270m of fresh life policies in the first three months of the year, it said yesterday. New sales through its newly-renamed Friends Life business rose 52 per cent or £92m on the same period in 2010, with £66m of the increase attributed to its [...]
