Dexia rescue fears spark stocks slump November 23, 2011 EUROPEAN banking stocks were spooked yesterday over fears the €90bn (£77bn) deal to rescue Franco-Belgian bank Dexia could be about to unravel. Financial stocks fell in Britain, France and Belgium after a report that Paris and Brussels were at loggerheads over short-term funding guarantees designed to allow Dexia’s “bad bank” to come off emergency liquidity [...]
Lending on plastic drops November 23, 2011 CONSUMERS are repaying credit card balances more than they are borrowing on plastic, with many Brits “simply going without” new goods instead of adding to their debts. While £7.2bn was bought on credit cards in October, £7.4bn was repaid, according to data released yesterday by the British Banking Association (BBA). Across six months to October [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS November 23, 2011 Intandem Films The London-based international film group has appointed Robert Mitchell as a non-executive director and as a member of the company’s film financing committee. Mitchell previously worked at Walt Disney, where he set up the distribution company Buena Vista in 1992 and rose to the position of managing director of Walt Disney UK. Prior [...]
FTSE lower as Eurozone business activity slows November 23, 2011 Investors remained hesitant today as grim new data on private sector activity around the world raised fresh fears of a recession in Europe at the end of this year. Asian markets closed lower after purchasing managers’ index data from China saw activity slump to the lowest level in more than two and a half years, [...]
China factory activity shrinks most in 32 months November 23, 2011 China’s factory sector shrank by the most in more than two and a half years in November as new orders slumped, a preliminary PMI survey has shown. The data has revived worries that China may be skidding towards an economic hard landing, fuelling global recession fears and sending Asian stock markets down at the close. [...]
New quango proposed to cut high pay November 22, 2011 A NEW quango should be set up to “police pay codes in UK companies”, the final report of the High Pay Commission proposed yesterday. The government’s business secretary Vince Cable welcomed the findings, saying: “Many of the options we are consulting on are reflected in the report. “There is widespread consensus, not just among the [...]
DON’T FEAR A RETURN TO VICTORIAN ENGLAND November 22, 2011 BRITAIN is heading for levels of inequality that were “evident in Victorian England”, the High Pay Commission has concluded. Yet the data this is based on does not go back to Victorian times. The earliest year on record is 1913, a dozen years after Victoria died. So the High Pay Commission has estimated where this [...]
Finns snap up gas and oil firm Hamworthy November 22, 2011 DORSET-BASED oil and gas services group Hamworthy has agreed to be taken over by Finnish enginemaker Wartsila yesterday in a deal valuing the UK company at about £383m. The announcement will boost Wartsila’s presence in the fast-growing energy sector. Wartsila said it saw major cost synergies and sales opportunities from integrating Hamworthy in its ship [...]
FTSE bounces but travel firms suffer November 22, 2011 Stability in Eurozone bond yields and short-term bargain-hunting gave London stocks some momentum today but investors remained wary after six previous sessions of losses. US markets closed down last night after the bipartisan committee nominated to find $1.2 trillion (£764m) of government spending cuts admitted it could not agree on a plan. Asian markets also [...]
Capital Shopping Centres secures new debt facility November 21, 2011 CAPITAL Shopping Centres (CSC), the UK’s biggest mall owner, has secured a £375m credit facility from a consortium of five banks to help provide “general liquidity” to the company. The owner of Manchester’s Trafford Centre and the MetroCentre in Gateshead said yesterday that the revolving facility would replace a previous, undrawn £248m facility that was [...]