Shares are flat as struggling Mouchel begins asset sell-off October 20, 2011 AILING outsourcing group Mouchel finally got its firesale of assets underway yesterday but the first deal will generate only £3.4m initially. It has agreed to sell its rail business and related assets to Australia’s Sinclair Knight Merz for cash and hopes to claw back a further £2.5m having retained certain assets, such as money owed [...]
Britain’s FTSE gets fillip from debt crisis hope and earnings October 19, 2011 BRITAIN’S leading share index closed higher yesterday, buoyed by financials on fresh speculation of a game-changing response to the Eurozone debt crisis at a weekend meeting of regional leaders. Forecast-beating earnings from the likes of spirits group Diageo also helped drive the move, although concerns about growth continued to come through in other results, for [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 19, 2011 Rockspring Rockspring Property Investment Managers has appointed Hugh Bigham (pictured) as head of capital raising and client services for North America. Bigham joins from the Sydney office of Principle Advisory Services, where he supported real estate and private equity managers. In addition, Julianne Cho joins from Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers as client services representative in [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS October 18, 2011 Cushman & Wakefield The global property consultant has appointed Michael Lindsay as a partner and head of its EMEA corporate finance team in London. Lindsay was formerly a partner and UK head of corporate finance at KPMG, and director in Citigroup’s real estate and lodging investment banking team. Signia Wealth Etienne de Merlis has been appointed [...]
LIBERTARIAN LEAFLETERS HIT OUT AT ANTI-CAPITALIST PROTESTS October 17, 2011 SNEAKING among the protesters outside St. Paul’s Cathedral over the weekend was a pack of intrepid pro-capitalist activists. Their purpose? To reform and educate the anti-corporate revolutionaries on the beauty of an unimpeded free market. “We distributed more than 100 leaflets to protesters,” ringleader Simon Gibbs told The Capitalist. “One third of protesters, mostly young [...]
Russia’s Evraz to list on LSE October 17, 2011 EVRAZ, the Russian metals and mining group backed by billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich, is moving its domicile to the UK and listing in London as it seeks greater international acceptance and access to capital. Evraz, which mines coal, iron ore and valladium and makes steel industrial goods, yesterday said it wanted to list on the [...]
Lack of plan to fix Euro debt crisis hits banks and miners October 17, 2011 BRITAIN’S leading share index closed lower yesterday, giving up early gains, as miners and banks went in to reverse after hopes for an imminent solution to Europe’s debt crisis were dashed by comments from Germany’s finance minister. Wolfgang Schaeuble played down heightened expectations that European governments will resolve the region’s sovereign debt crisis at a [...]
Mouchel chair quits after just four days October 16, 2011 STRUGGLING infrastructure group Mouchel was plunged into further chaos last night after its interim chairman quit after barely four days in the job. David Sugden resigned after failing to win the backing of Mouchel’s lenders to fill the position permanently. He had only replaced Bo Lerenius on Thursday when the firm warned it could breach [...]
Barclays seeks Spanish state guarantee to buy caja assets October 16, 2011 BARCLAYS is considering a bid for assets owned by three recently nationalised Spanish savings banks (cajas). Following its preliminary bid for the nationalised Caja Mediterráneo, Barclays is now leafing through the portfolios of CatalunyaCaixa, NovaCaixaGalicia and Unnim. All three were all taken over by the Bank of Spain last month after failing to raise enough [...]
Fitch cuts RBS and Lloyds October 13, 2011 BANKS worldwide came under fire from a zealous round of downgrades by credit rating agency Fitch yesterday, knocking share prices for the UK’s biggest lenders. Fitch cut the long-term default rating of both RBS and Lloyds by one notch to A and put Barclays on a negative outlook to reflect the reduced chance of another [...]