Madoff victim fund stands at 140m as the hunt goes on July 1, 2009 THE SECURITIES Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) said yesterday a total of $231m (£140m) has so far been committed to pay for claims from victims of Bernard Madoff’s fraud, with a further $2.74bn “authorised for potential future recovery.” The group, which was established by the US Congress in 1970 to help swindled investors, said that the [...]
O2 considers T-Mobile bid July 1, 2009 T-MOBILE UK could find itself at the centre of a bidding war after O2 became the second mobile network operator to consider buying the firm from Deutsche Telekom, its German owner. O2’s Spanish parent company Telefonica is kicking the tyres at T-Mobile UK, after Vodafone entered talks with Deutsche Telekom earlier this week. Telefonica is [...]
American manufacturing output reached a 10-month high in June July 1, 2009 AMERICAN manufacturing output in June reached 44.8, its highest level since last August 2008, according to the ISM survey published yesterday. While the headline figure remained below 50, production jumped to 52.5 from 46 in May. Capital Economics said the index is finally at a level consistent with an actual expansion in GDP, rather than [...]
VIRGIN ATLANTIC CUTS ROUTES AND JOBS July 1, 2009 VIRGIN Atlantic, the airline majority-owned by Sir Richard Branson, said yesterday it will cut seven per cent of its winter services and axe up to 600 jobs due to falling passenger demand. Virgin said its daily Heathrow to Chicago service will not fly this winter and it would suspend one of two daily London to [...]
Factory data shows easing contraction July 1, 2009 BRITAIN’S manufacturing sector shrank at its slowest pace in June in more than a year according to the CIPS/Markit UK manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) published yesterday. The PMI survey hit a 13-month high in June, rising to 47.0 from 45.4 in May but it is still below the critical 50 mark that separates contraction [...]
RBS Asia to be sold in chunks July 1, 2009 ROYAL Bank of Scotland’s Asian assets look set to be divided up between Standard Chartered and Australia’s ANZ, despite the bank’s desire to offload the unit in one go. Standard Chartered, led by chief executive Peter Sands, is in talks to wrap up a deal for RBS’ units in China and India and is also [...]
Banks’ leverage needs limits July 1, 2009 MUCH stricter system-wide limits on banks’ leverage are needed, the Bank of England’s executive director for financial stability Andrew Haldane said yesterday. “These ratios will need to be state-dependent, rising as the temperature rises across the financial system as a whole.” Haldane stressed there is a need for more focus on returns on assets rather [...]
M&S has best performance in two years July 1, 2009 MARKS & SPENCER (M&S) said yesterday that its 125th anniversary celebrations, a late Easter and the arrival of summer had all helped drive it to the best quarterly performance in nearly two years. M&S reported a drop in UK like-for-like sales of 1.7 per cent for the first quarter, ending 27 June, compared to a [...]
BA calls in Acas to avert strike action July 1, 2009 BRITISH AIRWAYS (BA) said it asked the conciliation service Acas to intervene in a bid to reach a deal with unions on jobs and pay yesterday. Talks between BA and the Unite and GMB unions aimed at agreeing a series of cost-cutting measures including a pay freeze and more than 3,500 job losses broke up [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: IS THIS THE START OF A RECOVERY FOR M&S? July 1, 2009 NICK BUBB PALI INTERNATIONALWeak comparatives may well be making like-for-like sales look less bad, but gross margins and profits are still falling and there is no disguising the structural or management problems that M&S faces, so we suspect we are not going to hear “game, set and match to Stuart Rose” in the near future. [...]
