Everything Everywhere teams up with MasterCard on digital wallet August 28, 2012 MASTERCARD yesterday announced a five year deal with the UK’s biggest mobile phone operator Everything Everywhere to develop contactless mobile phone payment systems for the network’s 27m customers. The duo will kick off the deal by launching a pre-paid digital wallet, allowing customers to transfer money from a bank account to a mobile phone for [...]
City Moves | Who’s switching Jobs August 28, 2012 Ludgate Investments The private equity investor has appointed Dr Bernard Bulkin and Ekaterina Sharashidze as non-executive directors. Bulkin joins from Vantage Point Capital Partners. In addition to his extensive investment experience, Bulkin is a professorial fellow at Cambridge University. Sharashidze has over 15 years’ experience in private equity and joins from Samena Capital, where she [...]
FTSE 100 lower on Eurozone uncertainty August 28, 2012 The headline index opened lower on the first business day after the summer bank holiday, thanks to gloomy economic news from Germany and uncertainty over the European Central Bank’s plans to contain the debt crisis. Specialist chemicals maker Yule Catto was the strongest riser this morning, up 6.35 per cent on the back of announcing [...]
AOL to buy back $600m in stock August 27, 2012 AOL said yesterday it will buy back $600m (£390m) of stock and pay a dividend of $5.15 per share as part of its plan to return shareholders $1bn that it received by selling patents to Microsoft. The company has been aggressively giving back to investors in recent months. It won a bitter proxy battle against [...]
Bob Diamond’s fiercest critic threatened by act of sabotage August 23, 2012 BANK-BOTHERING Labour MP John Mann won few friends in the City establishment with his robust denunciations of Bob Diamond during July’s hearings into Barclays’ abuse of the Libor rate. But the star of the Treasury select committee (who describes himself in press releases as “Outspoken Labour MP John Mann”) yesterday revealed that he had a [...]
FTSE 100 up on stimulus hopes August 23, 2012 The headline index opened higher this morning on hopes of fresh stimulus from China and the US. The US Federal Reserve suggested last night that another round of stimulus could be likely if the economy doesn’t recover soon. Headline mining shares led the index up, with Allied Gold Mining adding 4.33 per cent in early [...]
City Moves | Who’s switching Jobs August 22, 2012 EDM Group Iain Ferguson has been appointed non-executive chairman of the information management services provider. He is a previous executive vice-president of Havas, the French advertising company. Ferguson was also formerly chief executive of Mission Marketing Group, where he led its independent price offering. In his new role, he will identify and execute acquisition opportunities [...]
FTSE 100 dragged down by Eurozone woes August 22, 2012 The index was dragged down in early trading, as investors fretted over renewed uncertainty surrounding the Eurozone crisis. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is due to meet with Euro Group chief Jean-Claude Juncker today to discuss the country’s austerity plans. By far the biggest faller in the index in early trading was TT Electronics, down [...]
There’s no sign of blinking yet from dealmaker Glasenberg August 21, 2012 WHEN he announced the UK’s largest ever merger in February of this year, Glencore chief executive Ivan Glasenberg did so with a massive endorsement of the industrial logic behind such a deal. Here was one of the world’s most successful commodities trading groups getting together with a massively powerful resources group in which it already [...]
Barclays looks to combine all African units August 21, 2012 BARCLAYS is considering bringing all of its African operations under one structure by the middle of next year, it said yesterday. The bank is in talks with South Africa’s third-largest bank Absa about the move, and hopes to streamline operations in the continent. Barclays bought 55.5 per cent of Absa in 2005, but it is [...]