EBAY HANGS UP ON SKYPE IN $2BN DEAL September 1, 2009 INTERNETauction giant eBay yesterday agreed to sell a majority stake in Skype, its free internet telephone business, to a group of private investors for $2bn (£1.23bn). The consortium, which is being led by USprivate equity firm Silver Lake, includes Andreessen Horowitz – a firm run by the Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen – and London-based private [...]
CDBcreates investment arm September 1, 2009 China Development Bank (CDB) yesterday said it had set up a $5.1bn (£3.1bn) investment arm to focus on private equity deals. CDB, which has a three per cent holding in Barclays, said the unit would provide funding for infrastructure firms, energy and resources ventures and urban projects. It is hoped that the unit will help [...]
Get ready to profit from an autumnal pullback in indices August 31, 2009 OPTIMISM has been returning to the markets recently, but it would be foolhardy to believe that the worst is over. Last week, David Buik at BGC Partners pointed out that after the initial crash in 1929, the markets staged a powerful rally that retraced 60 per cent of these losses. Since the 6 March 2009 [...]
IS THE FTSE 100 RALLY A TRUE REFLECTION OF MARKET VALUES? August 31, 2009 HENK POTTS BARCLAYS WEALTH“The earnings season has given more support than anticipated, largely because firms have cut back. In the short-term we have to be a lot more cautious. But in the long term, if we are going into a period of recovery and companies are leaner and meaner, we are looking at some great [...]
Oils and miners bring FTSE higher, while banks also rise August 20, 2009 BRITAIN’S leading share index gained 1.4 per cent as stocks enjoyed a broad-based recovery yesterday, with heavyweight oils and miners in demand as raw material prices rose while financials also rallied. By the close, the FTSE 100 was 66.91 points higher at 4,756.58, having reversed earlier losses to close slightly higher on Wednesday. The UK [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 20, 2009 Aviva InvestorsThe investment group has appointed John Wood as a UK equities fund manager. Wood will be responsible for running the Aviva Investors UK Growth Fund and will join in October from Artemis Asset Management, where he was a senior fund manager for the UK and Europe. Prior to that, he was head of UK [...]
Eurasian leads the miners higher while Lloyds shines August 19, 2009 THE FTSE 100 share index inched higher yesterday, helped by oil producers, which gained on firmer crude prices as US demand recovered, but banks fell after HSBC traded ex-dividend. The index closed up by 3.89 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 4,689.67, after trading as low as 4,625.44 earlier in the day. Volumes on the [...]
Tightening spreads and QE make corporate bonds more attractive August 19, 2009 CORPORATE bond issuance so far this year smashed through the $1 trillion mark, the first time that this amount has been raised by non-financial corporates in a single year, figures from data provider Dealogic showed earlier this week. And while the European corporate bond market has typically been less developed than the American market, European [...]
Retail banking is struggling to get off the canvas August 19, 2009 AS Britain’s retail banking sector fractures and polarises, it is beginning to resemble a boxing match: two heavyweight contenders are preparing to slug it out in the main event with the prize nothing less than commercial success. In the red corner are the grizzled veterans – the traditional banking groups HSBC, RBS, Lloyds and Barclays. [...]
Goldman Sachs backs banks and helps to lift the markets August 18, 2009 THE FTSE 100 closed 0.9 per cent higher yesterday, led by gains in banks and miners which recovered from losses in the previous session, while data showed inflation held steady in July. The large-cap index closed 40.77 points higher at 4,685.78, recovering from a 1.4 per cent drop on Monday, its biggest one-day percentage loss [...]