Profits surge at Barclays February 16, 2010 BARCLAYS yesterday lit a firecracker under the UK banking sector as it posted a 92 per cent surge in full-year profits, thanks to a sterling performance in its investment banking division and a one-off windfall from the sale of its asset management arm last year. Pre-tax profit rose to £11.6bn, up from £6.1bn in 2008, [...]
Stellar growth should silence sceptics February 16, 2010 YESTERDAY’S full year results should silence the doubters once and for all. Little over a year after the bank was forced to write to shareholders insisting it was not seeking new capital, and would post better-than-expected profits for 2008, the bank has triumphed again. Group pre-tax profit for 2009 almost doubled to £11.6bn compared to [...]
Bharti will pay Zain $10bn February 16, 2010 Bharti Airtel will finance its $10.7bn (£6.78bn) bid for Kuwaiti telecom firm Zain’s African assets with foreign currency loans. India’s top mobile operator is believed to be in talks with Standard Chartered, Barclays, State Bank of India, Goldman Sachs and Nomura to secure funding. State Bank of India had already agreed to provide $2bn in [...]
Strong Barclays results help FTSE to chalk up solid gains February 16, 2010 BRITAIN’S top shares closed sharply higher yesterday as Barclays led a banking sector rally after its 2009 forecast-beating results, and oils and miners were buoyed by firmer commodity prices. The FTSE 100 ended up 76.59 points, or 1.5 per cent, at 5,244.06, extending gains into a second consecutive session after closing 0.5 per cent higher [...]
DIAMOND TAKES HARD LINE ON BONUS ROW February 16, 2010 AS AN investment banking doyen continually under the cosh these days with regard to bonus payments, it must be tough to keep a calm and unruffled façade at all times. Bob Diamond, the president of Barclays and head of its money-spinning investment bank Barclays Capital – yesterday kept mostly schtum at the group’s annual results [...]
US stocks boosted by Merck earnings February 16, 2010 US stocks posted their biggest daily percentage gain in three months yesterday after strong revenue from drugmaker Merck and regional manufacturing data instilled confidence in the economic outlook. Resource related shares were among the strongest gainers as a weaker US dollar sparked buying in oil and other commodities. The CRB commodities index marked its largest [...]
Technical signs point to dollar domination over the euro February 16, 2010 THE latest revelation in the Greek debt saga is that investment banks on Wall Street helped Greece and other southern European economies to move some of their debt off of their balance sheets through the use of securitisation and swaps over the past 15 years. This allowed them to reduce their official budget deficit figures [...]
Barclays sees record profit but bosses refuse bonuses February 16, 2010 BARCLAYS’ full-year pre-tax profit soared by 92 per cent to £11.6bn in 2009. The figure was boosted by the sale of its BGI fund management arm to US firm BlackRock last year. But even after taking that out of the equation profits were £5.3bn. Barclays Capital investment banking business generated £2.5bn of that. The bank’s [...]
JP Morgan to seal Sempra deal February 15, 2010 JP Morgan is near to closing a deal to buy RBS Sempra for $1.7bn. The deal, which could be announced as soon as today, excludes the more valuable North American parts of RBS Sempra Commodities. JP Morgan had been in exclusive talks to buy all of RBS Sempra, but US plans to stop proprietary trading [...]
Credit card rates soar to 12–year high February 15, 2010 CREDIT card rates have reached a twelve-year high as providers become wary of borrowers inability to repay debts during the recession. The average credit card rate now stands at 18.8 per cent, a four per cent rise from 2006 when increased competition between providers drove rates down. Banks and credit companies face higher pricing for [...]