Babcock keeps heat on VT February 18, 2010 SHIPBUILDER Babcock ratcheted up the pressure on services company VT Group yesterday by publicly calling on the board to enter into discussions over its £1.26bn takeover approach. In a move designed to stir up VT shareholders, Babcock said it was “disappointed” chief executive Paul Lester and his team had refused to engage. Babcock reiterated its [...]
Boeing plans to regain top spot February 18, 2010 Boeing is expected to become the world’s biggest civil aircraft maker again within four years, according to the head of the US group’s commercial aircraft business. Boeing lost the top spot to Airbus in 2003 when the European manufacturer overtook its US rival for the first time. Boeing, maker of the 747 jumbo jet, the [...]
EasyJet pay angers investors February 18, 2010 EasyJet pushed through an executive pay deal yesterday despite significant opposition from its investors. In the latest sign that investors are determined to keep executive pay in check, nearly 30 per cent of voters opposed or abstained from a vote on the discount airline’s pay policy at its annual meeting at Luton airport. Much of [...]
Google and Tesco to rival estate agents February 18, 2010 TESCO and Google are poised to offer real estate listings in the UK, radically reshaping the landscape of Britain’s housing market. The consumer giants’ onslaught on the property market comes after a report from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) suggested that legislation dating back to 1979 should be relaxed to allow more online estate [...]
Lloyds Banking Group to dole out £200m to staff February 18, 2010 LLOYDS Banking Group is set to dish out around £200m to staff in its upcoming annual bonus round, it emerged yesterday. The bonus pool is significantly lower than the pot at Barclays and RBS, due to the fact that most of Lloyds’ 120,000 UK staff work in the retail and commercial bank and earn an [...]
Toyota boss to appear before US Congress February 18, 2010 Toyota’s global president has caved in to mounting pressure and announced he will testify to US politicians next week about the carmaker’s global recall of its Prius hybrid cars. Akio Toyoda said last night he was looking “forward to speaking directly with Congress and the American people”. He had previously refused to travel to Washington. [...]
SocGen starts long recovery February 18, 2010 FRENCH bank Société Générale reported a full-year profit of €678m (£590m) yesterday, less than a third of the figure it recorded in 2008. A hefty €5.8bn provision against bad loan losses weighed against the Paris-headquartered institution, with analysts warning of more to come in 2010. The bank blamed the write-downs on assets bought by its [...]
Firms look to offload pension liabilities as burden intensifies February 18, 2010 ALMOST two fifths of UK firms plan to offload some of their dangerously bloated pension scheme liabilities within the next three years, paying a massive premium to insurance companies to take them off their books. One in ten expect to completely shift their pension pots to an insurance firm by 2013, according to the research [...]
Fears deficit rivals Greece February 18, 2010 THE dire state of Britain’s public finances was thrown into sharp relief yesterday after official statistics revealed that the government was forced to be a net borrower in January – the first time this has happened since records began in 1993 – as tax revenue plunged in a month that is usually a bumper one [...]
Money supply growing again February 18, 2010 THE supply of broad money (M4) in the UK economy grew 0.6 per cent last month but lending remained flat, provisional data from the Bank of England showed yesterday. M4 lending grew just 0.1 per cent in January and lending excluding the effects of securitisations stagnated. The annual growth rate of broad money lending fell [...]
