Spain manufacturing decline accelerates July 2, 2012 Spain’s manufacturing activity contracted at its fastest rate in over three years in June as output fell again in the face of weak internal demand and sliding exports, a survey showed. The Purchasing Managers’ Index for the manufacturing sector fell to 41.1 in June, from 42.0 in May, below economists’ forecasts for it to be [...]
Export slump hits Asia factories July 2, 2012 A factory slump in Asia’s two biggest exporters China and Japan deepened in June as crumbling orders from abroad dragged activity to seven-month lows, heightening worries that the health of the global economy is deteriorating. PMI reports on major exporters South Korea and Taiwan also indicated new orders from overseas were falling. The manufacturing sectors [...]
Apple pays out $60m to settle iPad trademark dispute July 2, 2012 Royal Mail has increased annual profits and said that its core postal business is also back in the black for the first time in four years. The delivery service made a profit of £23m on revenues of £7.2bn, up from a loss of £120m last year. The business, which delivers to 29m UK addresses, says [...]
Barclays chairman quits in Libor shame July 1, 2012 Barclays’ chairman Marcus Agius will resign this morning as the embattled bank struggles to contain a growing crisis that began with last week’s £290m fine for abusing the Libor interest rate. The departure of Agius comes after Barclays’ shareholders, politicians and regulators have all expressed shock at the circumstances behind last week’s settlement, which has [...]
Eurozone summit fails to solve growing debt crisis July 1, 2012 EUROZONE leaders made only a few small steps towards easing the pain caused by the sovereign debt crisis, and remain far away from targeting the root causes of the currency area’s problems, economists have warned. Politicians agreed last week to make plans for a “single supervisory mechanism” for Eurozone banks, probably run by the European [...]
Barclays chair was right to resign over scandal July 1, 2012 IT took a few days too long but the Libor scandal has finally claimed its first senior scalp. Marcus Agius, Barclays’ chairman since January 2007, has quit, in a bid by the firm to show senior staff are taking responsibility for the rate-rigging scandal. That was the right thing for Agius to do: the Libor [...]
Referendum on EU splits the coalition July 1, 2012 PRIME Minister David Cameron yesterday reopened the battle lines within the coalition over Britain’s membership of the EU by signalling he might yet hold a referendum. “For me the two words ‘Europe’ and ‘referendum’ can go together,” Cameron wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. But he added: “The problem with an in/out referendum is that it [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 1, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Esma probes agencies’ views on banks The pan-European markets regulator has launched a probe into the way the big three credit rating agencies evaluate banks to determine if the process is sufficiently rigorous and transparent, its chairman Steven Maijoor told the Financial Times. The European Securities and Markets Authority has begun inspecting Standard [...]
Heritage spends £541m on oil assets in Nigeria July 1, 2012 HERITAGE Oil is spending $850m (£541m) on assets in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, the firm announced yesterday. The firm will buy a 45 per cent in the OML 30 fields from Shell, Total and Eni in a bid to diversify. The firm has endured frustratingly slow progress at its Kurdistan wells, which has weighed [...]
Buckingham’s team will have to fight hard for a Nigerian win July 1, 2012 WHEN Arsenal last week announced it would play its first pre-season friendly against Nigeria’s national team in Abuja next month, the club won plaudits for bringing investment into the country. Tony Buckingham, the swashbuckling chief executive of Heritage Oil, must be hoping for a similarly warm reception from investors after his own entry to that [...]
