Glencore loses auction June 16, 2011 Japanese trading house Itochu has pipped Glencore in an auction to buy a holding in Drummond’s Colombian coal operations. In a blow to the newly-listed FTSE 100 firm, Itochu successfully bid $1.5bn to beat Glencore’s offer for a 20 per cent stake in the plants and a chance to profit from Asia’s growing demand for [...]
Maple reaches out June 16, 2011 A Canadian consortium of banks, pension funds and investment firms that hopes to acquire the operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange ramped up its sales pitch to shareholders yesterday with full page ads in Canada’s two national newspapers. The Maple Group reached out to TMX Group shareholders in a letter published in two newspapers to [...]
First meeting for the Bank’s new regulator June 16, 2011 The Financial Policy Committee kicked off the first of its quarterly gatherings BRITAIN’S new financial super-regulator met for the first time yesterday, led by a range of the Bank of England’s most senior officials. The Financial Policy Committee (FPC) kicked off its role as a key adviser on developments in the City’s banks, created in [...]
Private investors pour savings into equities in record numbers June 16, 2011 RETAIL shareholdings soared to their highest level since the start of the financial crisis in May, following four quarters of net buying, research out today shows. Private shareholdings reached £237bn last month, said Capita Registrars, with £798m net added to the holdings between March and May. In total, private investors traded £1.4bn between March and [...]
High street gloom twice as bad as expected… June 16, 2011 THE plight of the UK consumer returned to the fore yesterday as new official data showed retail sales slumped more than twice as much as anticipated in May. Retail spending dropped off sharply with the end of April’s sunny weather and public holidays, leaving sales down 1.4 per cent in May, or 1.6 per cent [...]
…but global boom gives Mulberry lift June 16, 2011 LUXURY handbag-maker Mulberry said it expected overseas sales to overtake those in the UK within two years yesterday, as it beat forecasts with a 358 per cent leap in pre-tax profit. Revenues from sales of its sought-after handbags and purses jumped 69 per cent to £121.6m in the past year, while profits rose to £23.3m [...]
Mulberry is still small in Asia – the luxury sector’s gold rush town June 16, 2011 IT is rare for a company to perform quite so spectacularly on almost every count. Group revenue was up almost 70 per cent; pre-tax profit was up an unbelievable 358 per cent; the gross margin jumped 640 basis points to 65.4 per cent. Its cash pile is almost twice the size at £21.4m. We could [...]
Samsonite falls on Hong Kong trading debut June 16, 2011 SAMSONITE International, the world’s biggest luggage maker, has dropped 7.6 per cent in its first day of Hong Kong trading, underscoring tepid investor appetite for initial public offerings as the markets struggle. Samsonite’s slump yesterday is the latest in a string of weak Hong Kong IPO performances as China’s strong growth shows signs of weakening. [...]
Russian port owner prices discount float June 16, 2011 RUSSIAN firm Global Ports has priced its London initial public offering (IPO) at a deep discount, as it looks to raise up to $572m (£355m). The container terminal operator, a unit of Russian freight group N-Trans, set a price range of between $14.70 and $16.10 per global depository receipt (GDR). The list price puts shares [...]
Aamal confirms pulled £400m share offering June 16, 2011 QATARI conglomerate Aamal has confirmed it will pull its $600m (£371m) London share sale, as first reported in City A.M. yesterday. The $2.4bn-valued company blamed the “continuing unfavourable new issues market environment” for its failure to list. Aamal is said to have been unable to attract the valuation it had hoped for from investors, according [...]
