Hammerson chair for Lloyd’s April 14, 2011 John Nelson, chair of FTSE?100 property company Hammerson, is believed to be a front-runner for the role of chairman of Lloyd’s of London, the UK’s biggest insurer. The firm’s current chair, Lord Levene, will step down this year, leaving vacant a post that is seen as an ambassadorial role for the British insurance industry. Nelson [...]
Euroset float cancelled as buyers dither April 14, 2011 THE already shaky climate in the London new issues market worsened yesterday as the Russian mobile phone retailer Euroset pulled its £800m issue. While the deal was overshadowed by Glencore’s announcement, Euroset’s flotation is the latest smaller planned initial public offering (IPO) to have been dogged by uncertainty because of nervousness in the markets. Investors [...]
City hiring spree to drive office squeeze April 14, 2011 LONDON-BASED banks will need an extra 1.6m square feet of space by 2014 to accommodate an expected hiring spree, research out today claims. “To put this into perspective, this is the equivalent of four extra Shards or five extra Heron Towers – good news for the City in particular as this is where most of [...]
LEADERS UNITE ON GADDAFI April 14, 2011 BARACK Obama (top left) has aligned himself with Nicolas Sarkozy (centre) and David Cameron by committing to support military action in Libya until dictator Gaddafi is gone. The leaders write that the world will be guilty of an “unconscionable betrayal” if the Libyan leader is left in place, putting the fate of citizens who have [...]
Ireland passes key stress test April 14, 2011 IRELAND yesterday said it had passed a crunch review of its economic progress by creditors without any penalty and ratings agency Fitch upgraded its outlook in some rare good news for the debt-ridden country. “The troika [EU, IMF and ECB team] have informally signed off on the first quarter,” finance minister Michael Noonan said. The [...]
US e-book sales overtake print April 14, 2011 SALES of electronic books (e-books)?have overtaken those of print books in the US for the first time ever, according to data published by the Association of American Publishers. Revenues from e-book sales soared 169 per cent to $90.3m (£60m) during January and February of this year while sales in paper books dropped 25 per cent [...]
Float reveals dominance of mining giant April 14, 2011 GLENCORE’S transformation into a publicly listed company has forced the commodities giant to lift the lid on some of its most closely guarded business secrets, revealing the true extent of its dominance in the global supply of raw materials. The newly published financial information shows that the firm has a 60 per cent market share [...]
MEET THE ADVISERS April 14, 2011 DAVID WORMSLEY CITIGROUP ADRIAN CARTWRIGHT CLIFFORD CHANCE BANKING rainmaker David Wormsley, widely known in the City as “The Worm”, is leading Citigroup as joint global co-ordinator and bookrunner on the Glencore listing. As chairman of UK investment banking at Citi he has been at the heart of several high-profile deals, including a key role in [...]
Secretive chief takes centre stage April 14, 2011 PUBLICITY-SHY chief executive Ivan Glasenberg will end years of secrecy by putting the private firm centre stage in an initial public offering (IPO). The former South African and Israel champion race walker is known to be wary of the limelight, preferring relative anonymity. Yet the 54-year-old has recognised the constraints of a private partnership on [...]
THE STORY BEHIND A COMMODITY TITAN April 14, 2011 THE COMMODITY boom has helped to turn Glencore into a powerhouse, creating huge profits on massive revenues. Driven by massive demand from China, commodity prices have soared in recent years, turning the Swiss-based firm into one of the largest privately held companies. Last year, it had pre-tax profits of $6.2bn (£3.8bn) on revenues of $145bn. [...]
