Swiss Re says reinsurance prices rising September 7, 2009 SWISS Re, the world’s second-biggest reinsurer, yesterday said reinsurance prices were rising overall despite difficult times in the insurance market.The reinsurer also said it was well positioned for the January 2010 renewals season. “We are observing a broad upward trend in overall reinsurance pricing, although this varies significantly between different lines of business,” said Michel [...]
London sees record rise in business confidence but lags rest of the UK September 7, 2009 CONFIDENCE among business professionals in London has risen by a record 35 points since last quarter – though the capital remains the least confident in the region, according to a new survey. The latest research from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) showed that confidence rose from -36.2 to -1.1, the [...]
TD Waterhouse heads to Eire September 7, 2009 EXECUTION-only stockbroker TD Waterhouse will on Saturday launch an online equity trading service in Ireland in the latest step of its European expansion strategy. The broker plans to provide Irish investors with online trading services on both local and international equity markets, as well as delivery direct access to a number of international trading exchanges. [...]
Spotify goes mobile with new iPhone agreement September 7, 2009 SPOTIFY, the digital music firm, has secured a deal to launch a mobile offering on Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and phones using the Android platform. The Swedish firm said yesterday that a mobile application is now available for its premium subscribers in the UK, Sweden, Spain, France and Norway on the three devices, and in [...]
Murdoch plans internal wire service to increase NewsCorp’s content sharing September 7, 2009 RUPERT Murdoch’s News Corporation is planning to launch a newswire service that will give all parts of its global network immediate access to all its stories and videos. The new service will be called NewsCore and will collate all of the media giant’s news stories, satellite feeds and web content for instant access by News [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS September 7, 2009 C&C GROUPCitigroup upgraded Magners owner C&C Group from a “hold” to a “buy” with a €2.95 target price. It said that underlying trading is challenging, but that management has made significant progress to improve the cost structure of the group. As a consequence, the broker believes top-line growth will be a key driver for the [...]
REI boosted by property recovery September 7, 2009 Property group Real Estate Investors saw its profits spike over the first half of the year as property markets began to emerge from the doldrums. The firm said its rental income was up by 55 per cent to £1.7m over the six months to end of June, while pre-tax profit grew to £1.3m, from £0.7m [...]
Telefonica and Unicom connect September 7, 2009 Spain’s Telefonica has reached a deal with China Unicom that will see the firms buy $1bn worth of each other’s shares as part of a strategic alliance. Telefonica said that its stake in Unicom would rise to about 8.06 per cent, while Unicom would hold between 0.885 and 0.892 per cent of Telefonica. The new [...]
Standard Bank in City relocation September 7, 2009 Standard Bank has taken up residence at a new City headquarters on Gresham Street, in a move which has seen over 1,000 staff relocate from Cannon Bridge House. The group described the new office as “one of the most technologically advanced in London”. The bank now occupies over 117,000 square feet of space at 20 [...]
Opec meeting hikes oil price September 7, 2009 OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna on Wednesday are expected to keep supply targets intact and instead rely on hoped-for economic growth to sustain oil prices. The oil market rose towards $69 (£42) a barrel yesterday after G20 finance leaders said at a weekend meeting they would not end stimulus plans until economic recovery was well [...]
