LinkedIn joins market with $352m float May 18, 2011 LINKEDIN sold $352.8m (£218.2bn) worth of shares to the public yesterday, with intense demand for the stock a sign of renewed frenzy for online and social networking companies. LinkedIn, which allows people to create professional profiles and is widely used as a job-hunting tool, floated at $45 a share, the top end of a range [...]
Shock exit of AssetCo’s finance chief sends shares into 17 per cent freefall May 18, 2011 THE CHIEF financial officer of fire engine provider AssetCo resigned with immediate effect yesterday in the latest setback for the troubled firm. Scott Brown, who was parachuted into the indebted firm just seven months ago, was leading negotiations with AssetCo’s banks over a £50m long-term debt facility and had overseen a £16m rescue share placement [...]
New FSA will prioritise bank transparency May 18, 2011 THE FINANCIAL Services Authority (FSA) and Bank of England will today hold a conference for bankers laying out the approach that the FSA’s successor, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), will take towards financial institutions. The conference comes as FSA chief and incoming PRA head Hector Sants said that improving banks’ transparency will be a priority [...]
PANDIT GETS $16M RETENTION BONUS May 18, 2011 CITIGROUP has awarded chief executive Vikram Pandit over $16.6m (£10.3m) in deferred compensation plus stock options as a retention bonus, a far cry from the $1 salary he took in response to the financial crisis. The third-largest US bank, which needed $45bn in US bailouts to survive the financial crisis, said in a regulatory filing [...]
CITY VIEWS: DO YOU THINK KENNETH CLARKE IS TOO SOFT ON CRIME? May 18, 2011 TOM CLIFTON | MUNICH RE “I wouldn’t think so, but he isn’t doing things the right way, especially the rape sentencing. Cases need to be dealt with one by one.” PAUL NASH | DEUTSCHE BANK “Yes he is too soft, I think there should be a military system in place in prisons with no luxuries [...]
Highest level of jobs since January 2009 May 18, 2011 CLOSE to half a million jobs were created in the year to March, according to official data released yesterday. Employment was up by 118,000 people in the first three months of the year, compared to the final quarter of 2010 – and up 416,000 on the same time last year. The total number of jobs, [...]
Unemployment starts to drop for under-25s May 18, 2011 YOUTH unemployment has dropped this year, government figures released yesterday showed. There were 646,000 unemployed 16 to 24 year-olds in the first three months of the year, down 40,000 from the previous quarter. Including students who are looking for work but unable to land a job, the figure is closer to a million, at 935,000 [...]
Russia leaves door open for fresh BP deal May 18, 2011 BP’S hopes of teaming up with Rosneft were raised yesterday, when the Russian state-owned giant said talks could continue past Tuesday’s deadline for a planned £10bn share-swap. Rosneft said the new proposals “go… beyond the scope of the earlier agreements with BP”, a nod to the possibility of involving BP’s Russian joint venture TNK-BP, which [...]
London drives prime results at Land Securities May 18, 2011 COMMERCIAL property firm Land Securities yesterday posted a better than expected set of results, which chief executive Francis Salway credited to an improving London market and smart forward-planning. The results, described as “blow-out” by one property analyst, saw Land Securitie’s pre-tax profit for the year to the end of March rise 14.8 per cent to [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF LAND SECURITIES’ FIGURES? May 18, 2011 KEITH CRAWFORD | PEEL HUNT Land Securities has the best niche exposures amongst leaders thus is our core recommendation within leader stocks. There appears to be little ‘drag’ factors in the results with all major categories of property showing material gains in the second-half. MIRANDA COCKBURN | MATRIX GROUP Management is showing it can beat [...]
