Bargain hunters help lift FTSE May 25, 2012 The FTSE 100 nosed up this morning as bargain hunters snapped up stocks which have been hit in recent sessions. On Monday the blue chip index was at a six-month low but has clawed back ground since then. Gains in Asia and on Wall Street overnight also served to lift sentiment. Insurer Aviva was the [...]
Equistone gets rid of Global Blue for €1bn May 24, 2012 TAX-FREE shopping specialist Global Blue has been sold by its private equity owner to buyout firms Silver Lake and Partners Group for €1bn (£802m). Global Blue has trebled in value since Equistone Partners bought the firm from management in 2007, and the sale will help the current owner return cash to its investors. Partners Group [...]
CITY VIEWS | CAN THOMAS COOK REINVENT ITSELF? May 24, 2012 JONATHAN WALTON DALTON WARNER DAVIS I think yes, but only if it gets the balance right. It needs to follow the lead set by other people, because it has a great brand name but the internet seems to provide the more cheap and cheerful option. It can build on it by providing the great quality [...]
Bank official warns against tighter policy May 24, 2012 PUSHING hard to cut inflation may do more harm than good, the Bank of England’s David Miles said yesterday, claiming that tighter monetary policy would hit incomes in the long run. Although the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is officially meant to keep consumer price inflation close to two per cent per year, Miles argued that [...]
FTSE enjoys some breathing space as bargain-hunters prompt gains May 24, 2012 BRITAIN’S benchmark share index recovered yesterday from stinging losses during the previous session as bargain hunters snapped up beaten-down financial and commodities stocks, although traders said any rally could prove short-lived. The blue-chip FTSE 100 index closed up 83.64 points, or 1.6 per cent, to 5,350.05 points. It fell 2.5 per cent on Wednesday to [...]
Barclays loses $650m on sale of BlackRock May 23, 2012 BARCLAYS lost $650m (£414m) on its sale of a $6.1bn stake in US fund manager BlackRock yesterday after it scrambled to offload the shares to comply with incoming capital regulations. The sale, which was managed by a list of 36 book runners led by Barclays, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, valued the shares [...]
A deal that shows Europe’s uneven playing field in action May 23, 2012 THREE weeks ago, George Osborne told other EU finance ministers that he was not prepared to sign up to capital rules that would make him look “like an idiot” due to their huge loopholes for French and German banks. One week ago, Osborne signed up to those rules. So while Barclays took a £400m hit [...]
FTSE down amid Eurozone gloom May 23, 2012 Miners led the FTSE down in early trading as a two-session rally hit the buffers. Fears that Eurozone leaders have lost control of the bloc’s fast unravelling finances sapped investor confidence. A summit in Brussels today will thrash out possible ways to tackle the latest phase of the crisis including France’s idea for the issuing [...]
Nationwide mortgage lending jumps by 44pc May 23, 2012 Nationwide, Britain’s biggest customer-owned financial services group, reported a 44 per cent increase in loans to home buyers in its last fiscal year, including a sharp rise in the number of mortgages provided to first-time home buyers. Gross residential mortgage lending rose to £18.4bn in the year to 4 April, up from £12.8bn the year [...]
Tesco’s Philip Clarke waives annual bonus May 22, 2012 PHILIP CLARKE, Tesco’s chief executive, said he would forgo his £372,000 annual bonus after the retailer’s weak UK performance last year prompted its first profit warning in 20 years. “I decided at the beginning of the year that I would decline my annual bonus for 2012,” Clarke said in a statement yesterday. “I wasn’t satisfied [...]