Strike-hit Lonmin Ponders cash call August 21, 2012 CRISIS-HIT miner Lonmin is now considering a rights issue to shore up its balance sheet as crucial funding tests loom. The group earlier this week denied it would need to tap the capital markets for cash. Lonmin admitted the U-turn yesterday, saying it was “reviewing all the options available to strengthen its financial structure” to [...]
Polls punish Osborne as debts grow August 21, 2012 GEORGE Osborne’s popularity fell to an all-time low yesterday as government borrowing ballooned despite promises to cut the deficit. Only 16 per cent now trust Osborne to see the UK through the recession – just half the number that supported him back in October 2010. Faith in the coalition government as a whole has also [...]
German banks want ECB to be lenders’ watchdog August 21, 2012 GERMAN lenders yesterday called upon the European Central Bank (ECB) to adopt supervisory powers over the Eurozone’s financial sector. Investors continue to expect the ECB to start snapping up the debt of struggling euro area member states, and now it is also being asked to take on a more proactive role as a banking watchdog. [...]
There’s no sign of blinking yet from dealmaker Glasenberg August 21, 2012 WHEN he announced the UK’s largest ever merger in February of this year, Glencore chief executive Ivan Glasenberg did so with a massive endorsement of the industrial logic behind such a deal. Here was one of the world’s most successful commodities trading groups getting together with a massively powerful resources group in which it already [...]
What the other papers say this morning August 21, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Generali set to exit US reinsurance Generali has become the latest European insurer to plan an exit from the US after Italy’s largest insurer by annual premiums put its US life reinsurance business up for sale, according to a person familiar with the matter. Citigroup is advising the company on a sale of [...]
S&P hits a four year high before paring its gains August 21, 2012 THE S&P 500 hit its highest level in four years in New York yesterday, yet the benchmark index later pared gains along with other US equity markets. In another day of light August trading, the S&P hit 1,426.68, its highest intraday rise since May 2008. The index has gradually edged up over the last fortnight [...]
FSA says hedge fund risk is low August 21, 2012 HEDGE funds pose little threat to the stability of the financial system, according to a report released yesterday by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The survey of funds controlling more than $380bn (£241bn), conducted over March and April, found that they have “a strong ability to manage the liquidity of their assets and liabilities”. The FSA [...]
Virgin plots Scottish route August 21, 2012 VIRGIN Atlantic ramped up its move into short haul travel yesterday with a pledge to start flying between London and Scotland if it clinches more slots at Heathrow. Speaking a day after the airline unveiled a route between the capital and Manchester, Virgin Atlantic boss Steve Ridgway told the BBC it was “important to keep [...]
Glencore ready to pull out of Xstrata merger August 21, 2012 GLENCORE’s high-profile merger with Xstrata is not a “must-do deal”, its chief executive admitted yesterday, after the commodities trading giant reported a 26 per cent slide in profits in the first half of the year. Chief executive Ivan Glasenberg said that if the $30bn (£19bn) “merger of equals” weren’t to go ahead, “it wouldn’t be [...]
Nadir jury still out as it mulls remaining nine theft charges August 21, 2012 THE jury in the trial of former tycoon Asil Nadir was sent home yesterday after an eighth day of deliberations at the Old Bailey over theft charges. On Monday, the jury found Nadir guilty of three counts of theft amounting to £5.5m, and cleared him of a fourth count. The jury is set to begin [...]
