ECB phases out liquidity policies March 4, 2010 The European Central Bank (ECB) kept interest rates on hold yesterday but announced it would start to withdraw some of its crisis liquidity measures. The six-month longer-term refinancing operation at the end of this month will be the last one of its kind and the three-month refinancing operations will return at the end of next [...]
Spanish labour talks deadlocked March 4, 2010 Important talks between Spanish unions and business to overhaul rigid labour laws have hit trouble just one month after starting, with unions branding a proposal over the sacking of young workers a provocation. Investors are monitoring the talks to see if Spain can find a way to make itself more competitive and cut its unemployment [...]
Petrofac will create new oil colossus March 4, 2010 OIL services group Petrofac will buy-up a string of North Sea fields as it prepares to float a new venture with Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum. The new company, named EnQuest, is expected to crash straight into the FTSE 250 and have a market capitalisation of $1bn (£669m). EnQuest will become one of the ten biggest oil [...]
EasyJet sees its passenger numbers rise March 4, 2010 THE number of passengers carried by budget airline easyJet in February was 12.3 per cent higher than a year earlier, though the load factor was lower. EasyJet carried 3.39m passengers in February 2009, compared with 3.02m who used the airline in February 2008, according to figures released by the airine yesterday. However the load factor [...]
PartyGaming hit by US legal settlement March 4, 2010 ONLINE gaming group PartyGaming slumped to a loss in 2009 after paying costs for a deal with US authorities that will protect it from being prosecuted over its past trading activities there. It posted a loss of $26.5m (£17.6m) in the year to 31 December – down from a profit of $66.1m in 2008. The [...]
Whitbread gets a boost from Costa Coffee’s sales rise March 4, 2010 COSTA Coffee’s sterling performance in the fourth quarter has seen sales growth at Whitbread, Britain’s biggest hotel and coffee shop operator, rise by three per cent it said in a trading update yesterday. Sales at Costa Coffee stores increased by 9.5 per cent in the quarter to February, benefiting from the launch of its new [...]
Anheuser-Busch InBev sees profit rise as cost-cutting drive kicks-in March 4, 2010 THE world’s largest brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev made a $1.28bn (£850m) profit in the last quarter of 2009. Anheuser-Busch InBev has made a series of cost cuts to tackle plummeting beer sales in the global economic slowdown. The brewer is poised to cut 800 jobs across western Europe as part of the shake-up. The company made [...]
Parker has left the business in good shape March 4, 2010 RETIRING Whitbread chief executive Alan Parker will be a tough act to follow. Yesterday’s trading statement shows just how well he has steered the company through the slump. Group like-for-like sales fell just 0.7 per cent in 2009, not bad for a consumer-facing business coping with the worst recession since World War Two. Although budget [...]
THE NAME GAME IS ON FOR MANCHESTER UNITED’S RED KNIGHTS March 4, 2010 IS A setback in the offing for the self-styled “Red Knights”, the group of City businessmen plotting to seize control of Manchester United from current owners, the Glazer family? The Capitalist only asks having chanced upon another, very different, group bearing the same name while trawling the Internet yesterday. Actually, the moniker belongs to a [...]
SVG assets improve on Permira cuts March 4, 2010 FEARS that Deutsche Bank will have to add more leverage and risk to reach ambitious earnings targets led Moody’s Investors Service to cut its investment-grade rating by two notches to Aa3 yesterday. Moody’s placed Deutsche ‘s ratings on review in December, shortly after the bank unveiled ambitious targets of achieving €10bn (£9bn) in profit before [...]
