Costain and Balfour Beatty sign £288m nuclear Magnox project September 6, 2012 CONSTRUCTION firms Costain and Balfour Beatty yesterday won a joint contract across the UK’s Magnox nuclear power plants. The contract, worth £288m, is for the decommission of all 10 Magnox-operated sites on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). The NDA, a government body, has been charged with decommissioning and cleaning up civil nuclear sites [...]
Honda invests £267m in UK plant September 6, 2012 Japanese carmaker Honda is giving its Swindon plant a £267m cash boost to replace robotics and upgrade production methods, as part of the firm’s plans to ramp up production. The auto giant’s announcement yesterday is a welcome boost for the Wiltshire-based factory, which has seen funding reduced in recent years due to poor sales. Part [...]
Mediterranean divests Italy assets September 6, 2012 Mediterranean Oil & Gas yesterday said it would divest its non-core exploration and production assets in Italy, as they are no longer considered part of the growth strategy for gas production. Mediterranean will sell 13 gas assets to Canoel International Energy Limited (CIL) for €100m (£62m). The gas production that will be divested stands at [...]
City Moves | Who’s switching Jobs September 6, 2012 BNP Paribas Real Estate Mike Chadburn has been appointed senior director of international investment at the real estate division of BNP Paribas. He was previously the UK partner to Azimuth Global Partners, where he sourced and acquired UK assets for Malaysian and Korean investors. Chadburn has also previously worked as director of Central London acquisitions [...]
Best of the Brokers September 6, 2012 BLAVOD N+1 Brewin has maintained its “buy” rating and upped its target price from 3p to 3.12p on Blavod Wines & Spirits following a trading update, as well as upgrading its forecasts. The broker says that the arrival of a new chairman, Don Goulding, should act as a catalyst to reverse a prolonged period of [...]
FTSE rallies after ECB’s bond buying plan boosts investors’ confidence September 6, 2012 MINERS and banks led the rebound on Britain’s FTSE 100 yesterday, after investors gave an initial thumbs up to ECB president Mario Draghi’s bond buying plans, while strong US data also helped lift sentiment. The FTSE 100 100 closed up 119.48 points, or 2.1 per cent, at 5777.34 as the index recovered losses sustained over [...]
US stocks soar to multi-year closing highs September 6, 2012 US stocks closed at multi-year highs yesterday, with the S&P 500 ending at its highest level since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers as investors hailed a new European bond-buying program aimed at stemming the region’s debt crisis. Sentiment was also boosted by stronger-than-expected data on the US services sector and labour market, which was [...]
Don’t blame developers: Britain’s planning system pushes up prices September 6, 2012 DURING recent planning rows, opponents of reform have argued that our lack of new homes was nothing to do with our 1940s planning system, but a case of greedy developers sitting on land with planning permission. Yesterday, the Local Government Association argued that the problem is big developers sitting on “land banks”. But big developers [...]
Paralympic tech innovation is at the leading edge of human inventiveness September 6, 2012 OSCAR Pistorius’s comments after losing the final of the 200m were a reminder that the elite athletes competing in the Paralympics don’t just have keep themselves in peak physical condition, but also watch that their rivals don’t run away with any technological edge. It is the skill and speed of athletes like Pistorius, and now [...]
ECB’s bond buying bailout bluff is not tricking Germany September 6, 2012 THE risk of total euro breakup just got much worse. The Bundesbank dissented from Mario Draghi’s scheme for “unlimited” purchases of Spanish and Italian government bonds, provided those governments apply for assistance and surrender sovereign control of budgets to the EU and IMF. The Bundesbank regards the president of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) scheme [...]
