Gleacher sees jump in turnover despite slow merger markets September 24, 2012 INVESTMENT bank Gleacher Shacklock will this week report increased revenues through 2011, despite choppy markets and falling profits in many larger institutions in the sector. However profits stagnated, and the firm increased spending on staff with overall headcount increasing by six to 48. Much of the firm’s income comes from fees on mergers and acquisitions [...]
Insurer Tawa sells unit for £17m September 24, 2012 British insurer Tawa yesterday announced the sale of its KX Reinsurance business to Bermuda’s Catalina Holdings for $28m (£17m) in cash. KX Re has total assets of $114m and its risks are mainly in the US, date from before 1985 and include asbestos liabilities. It was put into run-off in 1992 before being sold by [...]
Brazil prosecutor charges Petrobras September 24, 2012 A prosecutor from Brazil’s Public Ministry has charged state-run oil company Petrobras with environmental crimes for a spill at its Duque de Caxias refinery that allegedly contaminated the mangroves and estuary of Guanabara Bay off Rio de Janeiro. Public prosecutor Renato Machado also charged two employees of Petrobras in a statement released yesterday. The spill [...]
BP may need to pump billions into Azeri field September 24, 2012 BP WILL have to invest billions of dollars more than previously planned if it is to slow falling output at an Azeri oil project that is also Azerbaijan’s biggest cash cow, oil executives and diplomats say. The investments required to cut the decline at the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) fields are so large that it may not [...]
Toyota is short of energy for wide release of battery cars September 24, 2012 TOYOTA has scrapped plans for widespread sales of a new all-electric minicar, saying it had misread the market and the ability of still-emerging battery technology to meet consumer demands. Toyota, which had already taken a more conservative view of the market for battery-powered cars than rivals General Motors and Nissan, said it would only sell [...]
Cairn to sell stake in its joint venture in India September 24, 2012 CAIRN Energy is selling an eight per cent stake in Cairn India for up to $940m (£579m), a source with direct knowledge of the matter said, in a second such deal in three months to pare holding in its former Indian unit. Cairn Energy last year sold a controlling stake in Cairn India to London-listed [...]
Petra moves into the red September 24, 2012 SOUTH Africa-focused Petra Diamonds yesterday reported a loss after tax of $2.1m (£1.3m) down from $59.2m profit last year, hurt by $38.6m foreign exchange losses due to swings in the value of the South African rand. The FTSE 250-listed diamond miner, which has seven operating mines in South Africa and one in Tanzania, reported a [...]
Prime London property prices still soaring up September 24, 2012 PRIME London property registered another quarter of booming growth in the three months to September, estate agent data revealed yesterday. Prime property prices grew 0.5 per cent between the second and third quarters, capping off growth totalling five per cent over the year, the research from Savills showed. Contrasting with the picture in much of [...]
Hillary Clinton calls on rich to pay more tax September 24, 2012 US SECRETARY of state Hillary Clinton has called on the world’s wealthiest to pay their fair share of taxes. As the Democrats ramp up their fight against the Republicans ahead of November’s presidential election, Clinton told a conference in New York that she is keen for countries around the world to “collect taxes in an [...]
Bank of Japan ready for more bold action September 24, 2012 JAPAN could be set for even more monetary stimulus, its central bank’s deputy governor revealed yesterday, less than a week after it announced the latest tranche of quantitative easing (QE). The country’s asset buying and loan programme will be boosted to 80 trillion yen (£632bn), the Bank of Japan (BoJ) said last Wednesday. And yesterday [...]
