Minmetals offers $6.5bn for Equinox as seeks copper boost April 4, 2011 MINMETALS Resources, China’s biggest metals trading firm, yesterday offered $6.5bn (£4.20bn) to buy Equinox Minerals, chasing the target company’s copper assets in Zambia and Saudi Arabia. China, which accounts for 40 per cent of the world’s demand for copper, is on a mining acquisition spree as prices for the red metal hover near record highs. [...]
Barclays buys MBNA’s UK small business credit card business April 4, 2011 BARCLAYS Bank has bought MBNA Europe Bank’s Small Business credit card portfolio in the UK, acquiring approximately 60,000 accounts with around £130m of outstanding balances at the end of February. The portfolio will be integrated into its payment division, Barclaycard. Valerie Soranno Keating, chief executive of Barclaycard, said: “Following on from our recently announced intention [...]
Pfizer sells pill unit to KKR April 4, 2011 DRUGMAKER Pfizer has struck a deal to sell its Capsugel unit, the world’s largest maker of hard capsules, to private equity firm KKR for nearly $2.38bn (£1.48bn). Pfizer, which said in October it was exploring the sale of Capsugel, said it expects to make additional share repurchases this year as a result of the deal, [...]
BarCap top of debt league in first-quarter April 4, 2011 BARCLAY’S Capital has topped a list of global banks for handling the highest value of debt capital for the first-quarter of this year. The British investment bank handled the raising of $128.6bn (£79.7bn) through debt instruments over the first three months of 2011, according to Thomson Reuter’s global league table. The lender knocked Bank of [...]
Short sellers cover positions on HMV April 4, 2011 THE PERCENTAGE of shares held short in troubled entertainment retailer HMV has fallen, as sellers cover their positions, according to researcher DataExplorers. The struggling firm had seen 25 per cent of its shares out on loan in January, although investors are no longer shorting the firms stock as heavily. Yet the percentage of the retailer’s [...]
Western nations top CDS list on tightened spreads April 4, 2011 THE BEST performing sovereign credit default swap (CDS) markets over the first-quarter of this year are made up of Western nations, despite the rise of Eastern economies. Austria was the top sovereign credit over the first quarter, with a five-year spread of 60 according to data provider Markit. The nation has improved its credit position [...]
Economists eye end of ECB bond purchases April 4, 2011 ECONOMISTS have suggested that the European Central Bank has brought an end to its bond-buying programme after a statistical release yesterday revealed that it did not intervene last week. However, others say that the bank is highly likely to have waded into a sale of Portuguese debt on Friday, but that the purchases have not [...]
Doughty sells CPT to US firm April 4, 2011 PRIVATE equity house Doughty Hanson has agreed to sell water filtration firm Clean Process Technologies (CPT) for €503m (£443.5m). US firm Pentair will buy the business, which is a division of Netherlands-based cleantech company Norit. Providing nine per cent of the world’s population with purified water, CPT has approximately 1,200 employees and operates five production [...]
Close Bros to buy Cavanagh for £26.2m April 4, 2011 UK BANK Close Brothers has struck a deal to buy financial advisory firm Cavanagh for £26.2m. Aim-listed Cavanagh has eight offices dotted across the country, which in total hold around 60 advisers. It has private client and corporate assets in excess of £2bn of which £1.5bn are estimated to be revenue generating. The acquisition is [...]
SCION OF TORY DYNASTY JOINS SANTANDER UK April 4, 2011 SANTANDER UK has brought in a new head of retail, Charlotte Hogg (above), to replace Alison Brittain, who was poached by her former boss Antonio Horta-Osorio, now chief executive of Lloyds. Hogg, the daughter of the former Tory minister Douglas Hogg and granddaughter of former lord chancellor Lord Hailsham, comes to Santander from Experian where [...]
