Liberty bids $2.6bn to buy the remainder of Belgium’s Telenet September 20, 2012 US-BASED cable group Liberty Global is bidding €1.96bn (£1.57bn) to take full control of Belgium’s Telenet, seeking to strengthen its grip on a company benefiting from expansion across a range of telecoms services. Shares in Telenet, which also raised its profit and revenue forecasts yesterday, leapt 13 per cent to as high as €35.3 – [...]
Ryanair carries enough fuel September 20, 2012 ■ Aviation watchdogs have cleared Ryanair of breaching safety rules after three emergency landings in Valencia in July, but recommended that the airline and the Spanish authorities review their fuel policies. The planes were carrying sufficient fuel when they departed from Madrid, but after diversions during thunderstorms made Mayday calls as fuel dropped close to [...]
Centrica inks deal with Gazprom September 20, 2012 ■ Utility Centrica yesterday signed a 2.4bn cubic metre, three-year gas supply deal with the UK arm of Russian export monopoly Gazprom, it said in a statement. Gas deliveries will begin from 2014 and will be priced against the UK’s freely traded spot gas market, the National Balancing Point (NBP). “Centrica is at the forefront [...]
Nexen investors okay CNOOC bid September 20, 2012 ■ Nexen shareholders overwhelmingly approved the oil producer’s takeover by China’s CNOOC yesterday. Shareholder blessing of the deal had been seen as a formality, given the rich 61 per cent premium that CNOOC offered on the price of Nexen’s shares. But the shares remain well below the $27.50 bid price due to uncertainty over the [...]
Who’s switching jobs September 20, 2012 Cording Group John Partridge has been appointed executive chairman of the real estate investment firm. He is the founder and former executive chairman of Cordea Savills. Partridge also previously served as chief executive of the property fund management businesses at Morgan Grenfell and Henderson. Altium The investment bank has appointed Aksana Pekun as managing director [...]
Best of the Brokers September 20, 2012 RANK GROUP Peel Hunt’s Nick Batram has reiterated his “Buy” recommendation on leisure firm Rank Group and upped his target price to 206p. He says the firm has “evolved from a disparate leisure conglomerate” to be “a focused, fully regulated, gaming group with a high quality management”. Batram believes there is a 50 per cent [...]
FTSE drifts lower as fears over UK’s economic outlook leads to caution September 20, 2012 BRITAIN’S top share index wilted yesterday after economic data painted a bleak picture of prospects for a rebound in activity in the United States, Europe and China, heightening concerns over company earnings and valuations. The UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 33.84 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 5,854.64, continuing to edge away from 6-month highs [...]
Morale on Wall Street bucks weak US data September 20, 2012 THE DOW industrials ended slightly higher last night while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq cut most of the day’s losses in a sign that investor sentiment remains generally positive despite several weak manufacturing surveys from around the world. Pockets of strength included housing, with an index of housing stocks up 0.8 per cent, following [...]
Government must think fast and big to make Britain a tech haven September 20, 2012 THE Prime Minister says he wants the UK to be the best place in the world to start, run and grow a high-tech company. As a strategy for rebalancing the economy, this makes a lot of sense. The internet is where the growth is. It accounts for a greater share of UK GDP than in [...]
Economic malaise reveals itself behind a global surge in nationalist violence September 20, 2012 ONE of the most extraordinary images of the week was a display of militarised toothpaste tubes at a Nanjing supermarket. Beneath the Chinese flag, the green boxes were artfully arranged into the shape of an artillery gun, with an uncompromising slogan – “The Daioyu islands belong to China!” – between its wheels. The combination of [...]
