HMV DEBT REFINANCING June 7, 2011 Q.WHAT DOES THIS HMV REFINANCING INVOLVE? A.HMV’s lenders RBS and Lloyds have agreed to supply two term loans of £70m and £90m that mature in September 2013, and a £60m revolving credit facility. The deal refinances its previous £240m debt facility with £220m of fresh debt. The banks will charge HMV interest of four per [...]
Commerzbank raises €5.3bn June 7, 2011 COMMERZBANK, Germany’s second largest lender, has raised €5.3bn (£4.7bn) from a rights issue in order to repay state aid. The transaction, priced at a 45 per cent discount, is part of a series of steps to repay the German government for the cash it injected to support the bank during the financial crisis. Commerzbank has [...]
Resolution to return £500m to investors June 7, 2011 LIFE insurance asset buyer Resolution yesterday pledged to return £500m cash to shareholders over the next year, starting with £250m of share buybacks that kick off today. Resolution, which is restructuring life insurance books bought from Friends Provident, Axa and Bupa, will return the second £250m to shareholders in the first half of 2012 after [...]
Cowdery’s buyout fund is dead man walking but shares still worth a look June 7, 2011 WHEN Clive Cowdery returned with the second incarnation of Resolution, his life insurance consolidation vehicle, he had ambitions to match the firm’s moniker. To be frank, he hasn’t resolved very much and today’s £250m buyback suggests he doesn’t plan to either. February’s “pause” on new acquisitions is now looking like a final stop. The zombie [...]
LSE rival bidder eyes new firms June 7, 2011 THE HOSTILE bidder for Toronto bourse operator TMX Group is in talks with new members, as it looks to derail an agreed merger with the London Stock Exchange. Desjardins Financial Group, GMP Capital and Dundee Capital are close to an agreement to join the Maple consortium of Candian banks and pension funds to bolster its [...]
Boss of Charles Stanley blasts Keydata levy June 7, 2011 SHARES in stockbroker Charles Stanley jumped 7.3 per cent yesterday after it unveiled a 29 per cent hike in profits in the year to March. The wealth manager’s adjusted pre-tax profit rose to £17.7m from £13.7m in 2010, beating market expectations by about seven per cent, while earnings per share of 28.4p rose from 21.2p [...]
City MP throws his weight behind Broadgate campaign June 7, 2011 MARK Field, the MP for the Cities of London and Westminster, has thrown his weight behind our campaign to allow a new development on the Broadgate estate. Field, whose constituency is home to the 1980s development, said English Heritage was wrong to recommend the site for a Grade II* listing last week. If culture secretary [...]
HSBC settles US class action over Madoff June 7, 2011 HSBC said it has agreed to pay $62.5m (£38m) to settle a class action brought against it in the United States over its role in providing administrative services to a fund that placed cash with Wall Street swindler Bernard Madoff. The action was brought by investors in Thema International Fund, which transferred a net $312m [...]
GOVERMENT GIVES ARK FUNDRAISER £1M BOOST June 7, 2011 TOMORROW night’s Ark hedge fund gala has moved to the centre of the political agenda, after the government agreed to match private donations to the tune of £1m for the charity’s vaccination programme in Zambia. Led by development secretary Andrew Mitchell, the pledge is part of the government’s commitment to increasing British taxpayer contributions to [...]
Santander still failing to satisfy its customers June 7, 2011 AT the start of the year we looked at how Santander’s BrandIndex scores had nose-dived during 2010 taking it from competing with HSBC as the best perceived of the big banks to competing with RBS as the worst perceived. We saw that this decline was customer led (the biggest hit had been on recommendation) and [...]
