Vodafone may have to settle for £6bn for stake in French joint venture SFR March 14, 2011 VODAFONE may receive far less than it had hoped for its stake in its French joint venture, sending its shares down two per cent yesterday. It is in talks with Vivendi over the sale of its 44 per cent stake in SFR but it is understood the French firm is only willing to pay £6bn. [...]
BoA emails leaked online by Anonymous hackers March 14, 2011 Bank of America (BoA) became the latest target of hacker group Anonymous when confidential emails were leaked online. Anonymous, a group sympathetic to WikiLeaks, say the documents relate to the issue of whether BoA has improperly foreclosed on homes. However, the emails do not appear to be as damning as the hackers hope, with little [...]
Hongqiao cuts IPO size to $1bn March 14, 2011 China Hongqiao Group, China’s biggest privately owned aluminium hydroxide producer, will relaunch its Hong Kong initial public offering as soon as next week, after cutting the size to about $1bn (£620m). The company had initially targeted raising up to $2.2bn, but pulled the deal in January due to market volatility. The group now plans to [...]
Carlyle and Tiger invest in ships March 14, 2011 Carlyle Group has formed a joint venture with maritime investment firm Tiger Group to buy more than $5bn (£3.1bn) worth of ships with a group of other investors to tap growing shipping demand in the region. The joint venture will commence operations immediately and has committed to invest equity capital of $900m in the next [...]
St Ives to sell magazine arm March 14, 2011 Printing company St Ives said it agreed to sell its loss-making magazine business for £20m to a unit of private equity firm Walstead Investments. St Ives, which prints a range of products from books to CD and DVD cases, said it would receive £15m in cash on completion of the deal and £5m in loan [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS March 14, 2011 SJ Berwin The international law firm has appointed Tony Angel, chief executive of healthcare technology group Vantage Diagnostics, as a non-executive director. As managing partner of Linklaters from 1998 to 2007, Angel presided over a 57 per cent turnover increase and a 108 per cent profit increase. In 2008, he joined ratings agency Standard & [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS March 14, 2011 WPP Citi rates the marketing group “buy /medium risk” with a target price of 950p. The broker has downgraded its 2011-12 forecasts by one to three per cent thanks to currency movements, but still expects organic growth of 5.6 per cent this year once the firm gets through the traditional “mid-year doldrums”. Citi says WPP [...]
FTSE hits a three-month low as Japanese disaster deepens March 14, 2011 THE FTSE 100 share index hit a fresh three-month closing low yesterday, with some sectors seen vulnerable to further falls as the extent of the damage in Japan after the earthquake and tsunamis becomes clearer. Luxury goods firms such as Burberry Group and insurers including Aviva and Catlin Group were among the top fallers as [...]
Wall Street suffers in quake aftermath March 14, 2011 US stocks fell in the wake of Japan’s devastating earthquake yesterday, but other than specific industries such as nuclear power, the broad impact on equities was expected to be short-lived. Trading volume was unusually low compared with other sell-offs, coming in at 7.68bn shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange [...]
Uncertainty hangs over Japan in wake of quake March 14, 2011 THE Great Kanto earthquake struck Japan in 1923, killing over 100,000 people. In consequence, one day every September, children train for the next earthquake. Tragically, last Friday that training was once again put to use. On Monday, the Nikkei index slumped 6.18 per cent, with the prospect of further falls over the coming days. Sentiment [...]
