Monitise seals £100m placing but at discount December 4, 2012 MONITISE, the mobile payments firm part owned by Visa, yesterday completed a share offering that will raise £100m for the fast-growing company. In a move revealed by City A.M. columnist Mark Kleinman last Thursday, Monitise yesterday said it had found investors for the placing. However, shares fell by almost eight per cent due to the [...]
Greene King spirits up as cash strapped diners flock to pubs December 4, 2012 GREENE King boss Rooney Anand said yesterday that his 2,298 pubs were benefiting from the effects of the economy’s troubles, with customers choosing pubs over fine dining as they tighten their belts. As the pub owner and brewer announced a 7.3 per cent rise in turnover in the first half of its financial year, Anand [...]
Robert Friedland eyes London listing for Canada’s Ivanplats December 4, 2012 MINING entrepreneur Robert Friedland hopes to list his African-focused miner, Ivanplats, in London within around six months, after a long-awaited debut in Toronto in October. “We hope to bring the company to London, although we are a Canadian company, within about six months,” Friedland told a London conference. Friedland is one of the mining industry’s [...]
Autonomy’s Mike Lynch sets up website to challenge HP December 4, 2012 MIKE LYNCH, the British founder of the software firm Autonomy, has intensified his battle with Hewlett-Packard (HP) by setting up a website to rebut HP’s explosive claims. HP took a $5bn (£3.1bn) writedown last month, saying former Autonomy management had inflated the company’s accounts before the firm’s $11bn sale to HP. Lynch has publicly denied [...]
Facebook data use challenged December 4, 2012 FACEBOOK’S privacy policy will be probed in an Irish court by a campaign group that claims the social network is violating European data protection laws. Europe v Facebook, a group set up by Austrian student Max Schrems, said it will challenge an audit from Ireland’s data commissioner, which Schrems said did not go far enough.
UBS sells off pension business December 4, 2012 Swiss bank UBS has sold its pension business based in its wealth management arm to Broadstone Pensions and Investments. Terms were not disclosed. The deal will see the six-man team at the UBS London office transfer over to Broadstone’s office in Baker Street once the deal is completed. The former UBS Corporate Pensions business serves [...]
Edinburgh Worldwide keeps up December 4, 2012 Baillie Gifford’s Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust kept pace with markets last year, boosting its net asset value by 4.8 per cent. The £186m trust saw its share price rise 6.3 per cent compared to a 6.2 per cent increase for the MSCI All Countries World Index for the year ending October 2012, it said in [...]
Eredene exits Indian housing December 4, 2012 Eredene Capital, an Aim-listed investor in Indian infrastructure, yesterday took a £6.6m writedown after selling out its stakes in two social housing projects. The London-based firm, which boasts Sir Christopher Benson as a non-executive director, has sold its stake in Gopi Resorts and Matheran Realty – two housing developers in Mumbai– for £7.2m. The investment [...]
Xstrata exodus continues with Reid departure December 4, 2012 XSTRATA’S long-serving chief financial officer Trevor Reid is to follow departing chief executive Mick Davis out the door of the mining giant when the firm completes its merger with commodities business Glencore next year, it was announced yesterday. Reid, who was poached by Davis in 2001 to help turn the flailing business around, has decided [...]
Christmas countdown for rival high street retailers December 4, 2012 AS we move into the final countdown to Christmas, our high street department stores are pulling out all the stops. Looking back over 2012, the race between Marks & Spencer and John Lewis has never been tighter. YouGov’s BrandIndex highlights how the two brands began the year with six points separating their Index scores – [...]
