Sarkozy aims for €11bn in extra savings by 2012 August 24, 2011 Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday said he will tighten France’s belt to the tune of €11bn (£9bn) next year to ensure it stays on track with deficit targets. The budget savings announcement came after France was forced to scale back its economic growth forecasts for 2012 from 2.25 per cent to just 1.75 per cent. It has [...]
Success of Autonomy is all too rare August 22, 2011 AS success stories go, the tale of Autonomy has everything. Its chief executive, Dr Mike Lynch, began work on the mathematical formulas that underpin the firm’s software in the early 1990s, when he was completing a postdoctoral thesis at Cambridge University. In 1996, he founded Autonomy as a tiny startup, and spent the next four [...]
Facebook share sell-off values firm at $65bn August 15, 2011 INTERPUBLIC Group, the global advertising firm that owns agencies including McCann Erickson, has sold half of its stake in Facebook for $133m (£81m) to an unnamed buyer. Interpublic, which was an early investor in Facebook, is believed to have held a 0.4 per cent stake, which would value the social networking site at about $65bn. [...]
Italy sets out its reforms August 11, 2011 ITALY’S government said it was planning sweeping reforms to balance its budget and stimulate growth yesterday as it fights to convince markets it can manage its huge national debt. Finance minister Giulio Tremonti named changes such as raising Italy’s capital gains tax from 12.5 per cent to 20 per cent, selling off state assets and [...]
Stepping into the property market of the new world order August 11, 2011 WITH debt and financial turmoil gripping the economies of Europe, North America and Japan, it’s not hard to look at the rise of India, China and Singapore and sense a coming shift in global power. Recent headlines have been staggering: last year, David Cameron led the largest British trade delegation to India in living memory, [...]
HSBC seals sale of card arm for £20bn August 10, 2011 HSBC clinched the sale of its US credit card business to lending and banking group Capital One for a better than expected $32.7bn (£20bn) yesterday. The deal hives off the capital-intensive credit card division of the bank and leaves HSBC with just its core private and premier banking businesses in the US, part of the [...]
Tax benefits on equity would help SMEs thrive August 7, 2011 MARKET sentiment turned dramatically for the worse last week as political worries and disquieting economic data on both sides of the Atlantic outweighed relief at the threat of a US debt default being narrowly averted. Amid concerns deficit reduction plans will hit global growth prospects, UK politicians have focused on how the financial services sector [...]
Should the 50p rate be scrapped? August 1, 2011 YES SAJID JAVID, MP THE last Conservative manifesto was unequivocally right to include the pledge that “we do not regard the 50p tax rate as a permanent feature of the tax system” as, indeed, was Alan Johnson when he called for it to be ditched last November, when he was Labour’s shadow chancellor. Introduced by [...]
FTSE has a rollercoaster day as US data undoes debt rally August 1, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index shed 0.7 per cent yesterday after a rollercoaster session, with early strong gains on relief over a debt deal in Washington wiped out later by weak ISM data which threw the spotlight back on a faltering US economy. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 40.76 points, or 0.7 [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 1, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES SUPER RICH TO GET NEW LONDON ADDRESS A leading European hedge fund is preparing to build one of London’s most expensive housing developments as global investors scramble to gain a foothold in the capital’s resurgent residential market. In a deal completed over the weekend, Orion Capital Managers acquired an acre of prime residential [...]