Melrose steers clear of bid war for Charter by holding its price September 13, 2011 MELROSE distanced itself from a bidding war for engineering firm Charter International yesterday as investors digested a £1.5bn cash and shares bid from rival US buyer Colfax. Sources close to Melrose said it would not be tempted to raise its current 850p per share indicative offer, arguing that its bid would allow Charter shareholders to [...]
Nasdaq mulls new buyback September 13, 2011 NASDAQ OMX Group will reach a targeted 2.5-times leverage ratio earlier than expected and at the end of the third quarter will set a capital plan likely to include share buybacks, its chief executive said. “Based upon the current depressed share price, the share buyback certainly would look compelling to us, the board, and to [...]
National Grid issues bonds September 13, 2011 POWER infrastructure provider National Grid became the first company ever to launch a retail bond linked to the UK inflation rate yesterday. National Grid is issuing the ten-year sterling bonds, linked to the retail price index measure of inflation, to raise £22bn for capital investment to modernise the UK’s power transmission network until 2015. The [...]
Vickers: an elegant solution that is looking for a problem September 13, 2011 THE recent – apparently highly-acclaimed – ICB report smacks of an elegantly worked-out solution to problems that other bodies are addressing much more effectively. The ICB is right to seek ways to ensure that taxpayers do not bear the cost of banks’ failures. However, recent parliamentary legislation, together with developments at EU level and arising [...]
ARE YOU MORE WORRIED ABOUT THE EUROZONE THAN YOU WERE LAST WEEK? September 13, 2011 WILL DAVIS | LLOYDS “It’s been a dreadful week, but last week wasn’t too good either. This week’s news would imply a complete disaster, but personally I think it’s been a little overblown.” JOHN GRAVES | HHC “Certainly for the export sector this week has brought a lot of bad news. The euro has gone [...]
ICB helps push UK bank debt costs higher September 13, 2011 UK BANKS have seen the cost of their debt jump following the release of the final report from the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB). Despite escaping the worst of the sell-off in European bank stocks yesterday, Britain’s lenders saw the yields on their long-term bonds rise after the ICB said that around a fifth of [...]
StanChart lines up for Barclays’ Indian assets September 13, 2011 STANDARD Chartered and SBI Card are competing to buy Barclays’ India credit cards business, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said, as the British bank looks to reduce its exposure to unsecured lending in the country. Barclays has about 200,000 card holders in India and the book value of the business is roughly 2bn [...]
CELEBRITY TRADERS RAISE $12M ON BGC DAY September 13, 2011 RONNIE Wood is clearly in the wrong job – his masterful handling of a €2bn interest rates trade at BGC Partners, as reported in yesterday’s Capitalist, helped the brokerage beat last year’s total of $10m to raise a record $12m for global charities. Of course, credit should also be given to HRH Prince Harry, who [...]
How public opinion shapes economic debate September 13, 2011 LAST week we held a two-day forum to launch YouGov-Cambridge, a new think-tank that unites world-class thinkers with research data to understand the role that public opinion plays in decision-making within politics and business. Themed “Consumer networks and the diffusion of power” with guests such as Jimmy Wales, Steve Hilton, Nassim Taleb and Imran Khan, [...]
Northgate in line with forecasts September 13, 2011 Commercial van hire company Northgate said yesterday that despite tough economic conditions affecting UK and Spanish markets, trading has been in line with the board’s expectations. Underlying hire revenue per rented vehicle continues to improve, with an increase of over one per cent since the beginning of the financial year.
