BG pens $8bn shale gas deal October 26, 2011 BG GROUP will export liquefied natural gas from the US under a landmark $8bn (£5bn) deal with Cheniere Energy that will allow US producers to ship their shale gas supplies to the world for the first time. The FTSE 100-listed group said it had agreed to buy 3.5m tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a [...]
TURKEY DISASTER LOSSES TO REACH $170M October 26, 2011 THE 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated Turkey’s eastern city of Van on Sunday is likely to have caused up to $170m (£106m) of insured damage, risk modelling firm AIR Worldwide said yesterday. It said insured losses would be at least $55m, and warned the region had suffered more than 400 aftershocks of 3.0 magnitude or [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 26, 2011 Chaucer Syndicates Mark Wood (pictured) has been appointed as chairman of Chaucer Syndicates, the specialist insurance group that underwrites risk at Lloyd’s of London. Wood, who replaces Bob Deutsch, was previously deputy chairman and chief executive of Paternoster UK, chief executive of Prudential’s UK and European insurance businesses, and UK chief executive of AXA. In [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS October 26, 2011 RECKITT BENCKISER Citi rates the household goods maker “buy” with a target price of £40. The broker has cut its forecasts for the firm to reflect higher than expected Medicaid rebates, offsetting expected rises in organic growth. However, Citi continues to see the valuations for the firm as compelling, with the stock currently trading on [...]
FTSE 100 climbs on hopes EU summit will tackle crisis October 26, 2011 BRITAIN’S leading share index last night reached its highest closing level for two-and-half months. Defensive stocks performed well as investors awaited the outcome of a European Union summit, which opened last night, to resolve the two-year-old sovereign debt crisis. Investors also rewarded companies reporting strong figures in a patchy quarterly results season, with BG Group [...]
Hopes from across pond support rally October 26, 2011 US stocks rose yesterday as the slow progress from European leaders in resolving their debt crisis was enough to satisfy investors, even if early reports from an EU summit were short on detail. The Eurozone aims to leverage its €440bn bailout fund “several fold,” but details are not expected until November, according to a draft [...]
Unhappy? You should get into the rat race October 26, 2011 Rush: why you need and love the rat race BY TODD G. BUCHHOLZ PENGUIN I MADE a mistake. I changed my mind,” says the first line of former White House adviser and hedge fund manager Todd G. Buchholz’s new book, Rush: Why You Need and Love the Rat Race. “Several years ago I began to [...]
25 years after the Big Bang we ask: Was it a good idea? October 26, 2011 YES Eamonn Butler SOMETHING had to happen. London had once been the world’s major financial centre, but by the 1980s it had been overtaken by New York and that lead was growing. The City remained an old-fashioned world: to outsiders like me, more like a private gentlemen’s club than a place of business. Its leading [...]
Scandinavia is a showcase of free market reforms October 26, 2011 GEORGE Monbiot once claimed “Sweden proves the neoliberals wrong about how to slash poverty.” Our new research reveals a different story: Scandinavian success is a triumph of prudent fiscal policy, government downsizing and smart market regulation. It is a showcase for neoliberalism, and not its nemesis. The whole region’s success is striking: in the past [...]
A twenty-first century trade policy for Britain October 26, 2011 THE world may seem in deep economic turmoil, but it is only our part of it. Across the planet, the lumbering Asian superpowers of China and India are ticking along nicely. For many UK companies, exports to these growing economies will be critical to pulling through the next few years. In the longer term, boosting [...]
