Thai food giant mulls £2.5bn Birds Eye offer May 13, 2012 A THAI food firm has emerged as the latest suitor in the £2.5bn battle for the frozen foods group behind Birds Eye. Charoen Pokphand Foods, Thailand’s largest agribusiness firm, is preparing a bid for Iglo, which has been put up for sale by buyout firm Permira. The first deadline for bids was on Thursday when [...]
NAB’s British business drags down profits May 10, 2012 NATIONAL Australia Bank (NAB), the country’s top lender by assets, yesterday posted record first half earnings as higher trading, fee income and a rising share of the mortgage market countered losses in its UK operations. While NAB and rivals ANZ and Westpac have reported strong headline numbers for the half-year, all saw margins squeezed as [...]
Buy to let loans rise as market woes heal May 10, 2012 BUY to let lending jumped sharply in the last year, industry figures showed yesterday, though the sector remains far smaller than it was in its 2007 peak. Lending in the first quarter hit £3.7bn in 32,000 loans, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. This was up 32 per cent on the same period of [...]
Third way for London 2012 ticket hopefuls May 8, 2012 LONDON 2012 ticket applicants who failed in the first two rounds of sales are to be given first refusal on the next batch of 90,000 seats, which will be released from Friday at 11am. The 20,000 Olympics fans who missed out in the initial ballot and second chance sale will have 31 hours of exclusive [...]
Mortgage approvals rise in March May 2, 2012 Mortgage approvals for home loans in Britain rose unexpectedly in March, suggesting the housing market continued to recover despite the end of a tax exemption for first-time buyers, Bank of England data showed. The bank said mortgage approvals climbed to 49,860 in March from 49,029 in February, confounding analysts’ forecasts for a fall to 48,000. [...]
FTSE shored up by strong blue chip results May 2, 2012 The FTSE 100 was flat in early trading as better than expected US manufacturing figures were offset by the bleak picture in the Eurozone. US manufacturing expanded at its fastest pace for 10 months fuelling confidence in the recovery of the world’s largest economy. However, the Eurozone’s manufacturing sector slipped further into decline last month, [...]
Double dip set to push house prices lower April 29, 2012 House prices slowed to a crawl this month and will slump again through the second half of 2012, a new report warns today. The double dip recession is dragging down demand and consumer confidence is draining out of the market, according to Hometrack, just as supply is starting to pick up. Prices rose just 0.1 [...]
FTSE slumps as fresh fears over the Eurozone return to global markets April 23, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares surrendered almost all of last week’s gains yesterday, led lower by commodity stocks and banks, as political uncertainty and disappointing economic data revived investor concerns over the Eurozone debt situation. The mood was darkened by data showing the Eurozone’s business slump deepened at a far faster pace than expected in April, suggesting [...]
Fundamentals remain for gold to resume its bull run April 23, 2012 With the US balance sheet more than doubling, it is not gold and other commodities that are expensive but cash that is cheap GOLD has been struggling to make any real breakthroughs of late, stuck below the psychological $1,700 an ounce level since the beginning of March. On the New York Mercentile Exchange, Comex gold [...]
The importance of separating politics and currency markets April 17, 2012 AS THE European turmoil continues, why isn’t the euro falling to pieces before our eyes? With Eurozone policy makers blundering from one crisis to the next – at best covering up the cracks in the fiscal superstructure, at worst knocking out a supporting wall – you might be forgiven for expecting the euro to have [...]