TUI profits rise despite uncertainty December 6, 2011 TUI TRAVEL has delivered another blow to its struggling rival Thomas Cook, delivering profits and a dividend rise despite the tough market. The company, which has the Thomson and First Choice brands, reported pre-tax profits of £144m in the year to 30 September. Chief executive Peter Long said the company’s expertise was “second to none” [...]
ALL BETS ARE OFF FOR DEL BONO’S CASINO PLOT December 6, 2011 IT WAS like the Marie Celeste when Luca Del Bono first looked round 50 St James’s: the tables in the restaurant were still laid for dinner and the staff uniforms were still hanging on their hooks in the hall. That’s what happens when you abandon ship so abruptly – as the site’s previous owner, the [...]
Centrica eyes Qatar with new contract December 6, 2011 CENTRICA has signed a memorandum of understanding to look at joint investment opportunities with Qatar Petroleum, two weeks after announcing a £1bn exploration and supply deal with Norwegian group Statoil. The British Gas owner said investment targets will include new or existing projects in upstream oil and gas including gas storage, as well as combined-cycle [...]
QATAR DEALS IN THE SPOTLIGHT December 6, 2011 ● 4 DECEMBER Qatar signed a deal with Royal Dutch Shell to develop a $6.4bn (£4.1bn) petrochemicals complex in the Ras Laffan industrial city in the Gulf Arab state. ● 13 NOVEMBER Qatar in negotiations to take a stake in an Arctic liquefied natural gas (LNG) project under development by Russian gas producer Novatek ● 30 [...]
Glencore chief to keep stock December 6, 2011 GLENCORE boss Ivan Glasenberg said yesterday that he would not sell any of his shares in the company as long as he worked there. “None of us has sold a single share. Neither before nor after the flotation. And I’ve often said that I’m not thinking about selling any shares as long as I work [...]
UK oil industry suffering from a lack of investment December 6, 2011 The UK oil industry is at risk of under investment in the next twenty years, according to 78 per cent of respondents to a survey of senior executives in the energy sector by Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets. And four-fifths of respondents to the survey thought the industry was not producing engineers in sufficient numbers to [...]
Gulfsands hit by EU action over Syria December 6, 2011 GULFSANDS Petroleum said it was reviewing the impact of the latest EU sanctions on Syria on its production activities and on its contracts with the Syrian government and the General Petroleum Corporation. The EU stepped up its sanctions against Syria’s oil industry last week, blacklisting state-owned firms including GPC that oversee trade and exploration, as [...]
Whitehaven and Aston in $5bn merger discussions December 6, 2011 WHITEHAVEN Coal and Aston Resources are discussing what could be a $5bn (£3.1bn) merger to create Australia’s biggest independent coal company, the two confirmed yesterday, sending Aston’s shares up as much as seven per cent. The coal industry has been Australia’s hottest sector for deals in the past three years, topped by US miner Peabody [...]
Lonmin signs union pay deal December 6, 2011 Lonmin has signed a two-year wage agreement with the South African National Union of Mineworkers. In the first year of the agreement – which will be backdated to 1 October – employees will receive pay increases and improvements in benefits of up to 10 per cent, depending on their job grades. The figures, which will [...]
Ultra Electronics buys two firms December 6, 2011 Ultra Electronics, a supplier for the US Navy, announced yesterday the purchase of two surveillance technology companies for a combined price of $115m (£73.3m), in order to expand its access to work from the US government. Special Operations Technology, purchased for $38.4m, is a communications surveillance systems that manages large amounts of data from mobile, [...]
