RBS names adviser on Direct Line IPO May 30, 2012 Royal Bank of Scotland has picked UBS to help with the listing of its Direct Line insurance arm this year, one of the biggest planned listings in London, people familiar with the matter said. RBS has said it wanted to list a minority stake in Direct Line in the fourth quarter. The eurozone crisis and [...]
Coulson detained over perjury allegations May 30, 2012 Prime Minister David Cameron’s former spokesman has been detained on suspicion of committing perjury after he denied any knowledge of phone hacking by News of the World reporters in a court case in 2010. Scotland’s Crown Office said on Wednesday that Andy Coulson had been held by police officers investigating allegations of perjury following his [...]
Mortgage approvals rise May 30, 2012 UK mortgage approvals for house purchase and mortgage lending were at their highest since January last month, but Britons repaid their credit card bills at the fastest rate in more than five years, Bank data showed on Wednesday. The central bank said mortgage approvals numbered 51,823 in April, up from 51,067 in March. Analysts had [...]
BG sells Philippines plant stake for $360m May 30, 2012 UK gas producer BG said it had agreed to sell its 40 per cent stake in two gas-fired power generation plants in the Philippines to free up cash to invest in more lucrative gas and oil production. The sale, to BG’s partner in the plants, First Gen Corporation, will be for $360m (£231m) cash. The [...]
Booker to buy rival Makro for £139m May 30, 2012 German retailer Metro said it would sell its Makro UK stores to Booker Group in a deal valued at £139.7m. Metro and Booker will combine their wholesale businesses to form a strategic partnership in the United Kingdom. The German retail group will receive 9.99 per cent of Booker’s current issued share capital plus £15.8m in [...]
Spanish regional profligacy sits as a worrying lesson to the Eurozone May 29, 2012 BEYOND the troubled banking sector, there is another potential problem on the Spanish horizon that could be instrumental in how the euro crisis develops: the central government’s relationship with the 17 Spanish regions, and particularly its ability to keep public spending at the regional level under control. The 1978 post-Franco constitution designed Spain as a [...]
I should have the right to quit a job without being sued for unfairly resigning May 29, 2012 AS AN undergraduate, I worked at a laundromat for a few months. Each Sunday I would spend 10 hours giving people tokens for the machines and doing “serviced washes”. This could be a nasty business because people occasionally dropped off clothes or bed sheets they had soiled on account of drinking too much the night [...]
Charities need to be innovative to beat tough times May 29, 2012 PUBLIC services are being opened up to a variety of providers. If you go swimming, social enterprise Greenwich Leisure Limited, not the council, may well be running the pool. Your rubbish is more likely to be collected by a private company. And if you have a relative in need of social care, then it’s likely [...]
As BP faces difficulty at its Russian venture, is the country a safe place for UK investors? May 29, 2012 YES John McRoberts There has always been concern around election time in Russia but, now that Vladimir Putin is again President, I expect another period of stability. He has transformed the country, putting in place a new environment for business, built primarily on transforming the tax system. Personal income tax is now a flat 13 [...]
RAPID RESPONSES May 29, 2012 Support start ups [Re: Cheap money and more debt won’t help the young, yesterday] While I sympathise with Philip Salter’s concerns about taxpayers’ money being thrown at the government’s start-up loan scheme, some budding entrepreneurs will always need loans. I’d prefer that private lenders provide these loans, but for some reason this is not happening. I’m [...]
