HIG buys British telecoms firm February 13, 2011 HIG Europe, the European arm of global private equity house HIG Capital, has acquired Aircom International, the mobile phone services provider. Bought from Advent International for an undisclosed price, the Aircom investment marks HIG’s eighth new deal investment in the last 12 months. Barclays and HSBC provided a “joint debt package” to support the group [...]
BA severs ties with UBS February 13, 2011 BRITISH Airways has severed ties with UBS, the corporate broker the airline has used for 24 years. The carrier has chosen Deutsche Bank and Barclays Capital, following its merger with Spanish airline Iberia. The newly formed International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG), which listed in London and Madrid last month, decided to end its relationship with [...]
Project Merlin has to avoid mistakes of past February 13, 2011 LAST week, George Osborne announced to the House of Commons that the four largest UK banks – HSBC, Barclays, RBS and Lloyds – have finally signed up to what has been dubbed project Merlin. There is no doubt this agreement is good news if it starts to rebuild the banks’ relationship with the government and [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 13, 2011 Barclays Wealth Solomon Soquar (pictured) has joined the asset manager as head of the strategic solutions group, which is a core part of its ultra-high net worth operation. He will report to Stefanie Drews. Soquar joins the firm from Citi Private Bank, where he was in capital markets. Previously, he has worked at Merrill Lynch [...]
FTSE will open higher but relief over Egypt may wane February 13, 2011 A positive start is expected for stock markets this morning, continuing the relief rally that began on Friday when President Mubarak’s decision to stand down was announced. GFT is quoting the FTSE 100 index to open up 15 points from Friday’s close, at a level of 6,077. Elsewhere in Europe the German Dax is called [...]
THE WEEK AHEAD February 13, 2011 COMPANY NEWS ● Barclays will release its full year results tomorrow. ● Miner BHP Billiton will release its half year results on Wednesday. ● French bank Societe Generale will release its fourth quarter results on Wednesday. ● On Thursday, bank BNP Paribas will release its fourth quarter results. ● BAE Systems will release its full year results on Thursday. [...]
More suitors emerge for Eon February 10, 2011 Utility giant Eon is thought to have fielded several fresh bids for its UK electricity grid distribution business. US energy supplier PPL, Hong Kong-based CKI and MidAmerican Energy Holdings, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, were among those named yesterday as potential suitors for the business. All three firms already have operations in the UK. [...]
Winter freeze sees jump in energy supply February 10, 2011 INDUSTRIAL production jumped by half a per cent in December, fuelled by a surge in energy supply as households cranked up the heating, official data showed yesterday. Spikes in the supply of electricity (up 12.3 per cent) and gas (up 10.3 per cent) drove up the UK’s index of production, recorded by the Office for [...]
The Malthusian bull market carries on February 10, 2011 IN 1980, two academics, Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich, agreed a now famous wager. Ehrlich chose five commodity metals and bet that over the next 10 years, they would get more expensive. Ultimately, Simon won, and all five metals – copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten – got progressively less expensive all the way up [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 10, 2011 ARM HOLDINGS RBS rates the technology company “buy” with a target price of 625p. Hewlett Packard’s introduction of the Palm operating system on its PCs later this year could help ARM penetrate the notebook PC market, moving its market share from one per cent in 2011 to 20 per cent by 2015. RBS estimates that [...]