BGC Partners adds brokers with Mint buy August 19, 2010 INTERDEALER broker BGC Partners has added more than 100 brokers through its purchase of Mint Partners for an undisclosed sum, in what one insider has labelled a large-scale hiring spree. Mint co-founders Richard Barnett and Timothy Bullman will join BGC as senior managing directors, but will remain co-chief executives of their original business and operate [...]
US scientist now says BP oill spill still in the Gulf August 19, 2010 A TOP US government scientist said yesterday that three-quarters of the oil that leaked out into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s damaged well was still in the ocean ?– contradicting his earlier evidence that the worst of the spill has passed. Bill Lehr, a senior scientist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), [...]
PAKISTAN HOPES TO EXTEND IMF LOANS August 19, 2010 Pakistan is to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ease conditions on a $10bn (£6.4bn) loan it received in 2008 in light of the floods that have made 4m people homeless. The country’s finance minister will travel to Washington next week in a bid to delay repayments until the effects of the devastating floods [...]
UK tax boost eases deficit as sales rise August 19, 2010 BETTER-THAN-PREDICTED high street sales and unexpectedly low government borrowing figures gave UK markets a late summer fillip yesterday. Shoppers defied talk of weakening consumer confidence to send the nation’s till receipts up 1.1 per cent between June and July, far ahead of the 0.4 per cent rise pencilled in by economists. The Office for National [...]
Sarkozy holds pre-Budget meeting to avoid downgrade August 19, 2010 FRENCH President Nicholas Sarkozy will today attend an emergency meeting with finance minister Christine Lagarde and Prime Minister Francois Fillon to discuss the state of the French economy. The meeting comes ahead of the September Budget and shortly after Moody’s reaffirmed France’s Aaa rating but said that its “distance to downgrade” was shorter than it [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: IS THE UK ECONOMY PICKING UP AGAIN? August 19, 2010 GEORGE BUCKLEY | DEUTSCHE BANK Today’s news was generally stronger than expected. Retail sales grew faster than expected, broad money was up, the Budget deficit fell and the CBI’s manufacturing survey was encouraging. This should be positive for GDP. DAVID KERN | BRITISH CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE There is no room for complacency. The economy is [...]
Essar finance chief quits to return to uni August 19, 2010 INDIAN FTSE 100 giant Essar Energy yesterday confirmed it is on track with aggressive growth plans in its domestic market, even as it sought to reassure investors over ongoing corporate governance issues. But the group was hit by a setback yesterday as it emerged finance director Gerry Bacon is to step down at the end [...]
An Indian growth story August 19, 2010 AFTER a shaky start, investors are finally seeing Essar Energy for the company it really is: a liquid, London-listed firm that is well-positioned to capitalise on India’s rapidly growing energy demand. Energy consumption will soar in India in future years: 45 per cent of households don’t have access to electricity, while those that do have [...]
Bank lending to UK businesses remains weak August 19, 2010 NET lending to British businesses fell for the fourth month in a row in June while mortgage approvals slumped to their lowest level in over a year last month, figures from the Bank of England showed yesterday. In its Trends in Lending report, the central bank showed that the net monthly flow of lending to [...]
Glazer family hit by higher interest rate August 19, 2010 Manchester United’s American owners saw interest payments on a loan taken out to refinance the club jump to 16.25 per cent this week after they failed to keep debt at an agreed level. The two per cent hike will see the club pay millions extra on a payment-in-kind (Pik) loan of more than £200m, which [...]
