PotashCorp hunts for a white knight August 23, 2010 THIS is shaping up to be a classic takeover wrangle. First came the unsolicited bid – at $39.6bn (£25.5bn), BHP Billiton’s offer is a 20 per cent premium to PotashCorp’s undisturbed share price – which was immediately knocked back. Then came the anguished rhetoric from PotashCorp about the “grossly inadequate” level of BHP’s approach. The [...]
TRADERS SEX UP THE DULL WORLD OF FOREX August 23, 2010 THE THINGS that bored traders get up to when they get a minute, eh? The Capitalist chances upon an, err, enterprising website set up by a pair of forex traders, who claim to have cracked the conundrum of how to dispense a barrage of information to their peers while simultaneously holding their interest – by [...]
China’s ZTE wins Hungary deal August 23, 2010 China’s ZTE Corp has won a major contract to roll out a 4G mobile network in Hungary in a coup for the Chinese telecoms industry. The deal with Telenor, valued at €200m (£163m), represents a thawing of the mistrust surrounding Chinese technology firms. As early as this month ZTE saw the Indian government block purchase [...]
Savvy traders should bet on a golden autumn August 22, 2010 THE old City adage of selling in May and not returning until St Leger’s Day in early September typically refers to the equity markets, which suffer from low volumes and choppy trading during the summer months. But the saying is equally applicable to the gold market, which also demonstrates a clear seasonality and experiences a [...]
KNOC launches £1.7bn hostile bid for Dana August 20, 2010 State-run Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) has made a hostile $2.6bn (£1.7bn) cash bid for Dana Petroleum, reflecting South Korea’s growing urgency to boost oil reserves. Seoul gave KNOC a $6.5bn warchest this year to compete with energy-hungry Asian state firms aiming to secure future supplies for their growing economies. Chinese and other firms have [...]
Rio Tinto boss hopes to forge stronger ties with state-owned firms in China August 19, 2010 GLOBAL miner Rio Tinto hopes to see further cooperation with China’s state-owned firms after its tie-up with Chinese aluminium giant Chalco, Rio Tinto’s boss yesterday. Tom Albanese, chief executive, also said the company was willing to help China seek mineral resources at home and abroad. “The partnership with Chalco opens the potential for further cooperation [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 17, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES CRIMINAL GANGS TARGET INSIDER DEALING Organised criminals in the UK are becoming increasingly involved in financial frauds including insider share dealing that they see as lucrative and low risk, investigators have warned. A long-term trend of prosecutions in the US has shown the same shift by crime gangs to more sophisticated frauds. FUNDING [...]
China surges past Japan in symbolic shift August 16, 2010 CHINA’S per capita annual income is just $3,600 (£2,299) compared to Japan’s $37,800 but in the second quarter of this year the once impoverished communist state surged past Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. The faltering Japanese economy grew by just 0.1 per cent in the three months to June, an annualised pace of [...]
Dax fortunes depend on the East August 15, 2010 WITH data for German GDP growth of 2.2 per cent smashing expectations of 0.6 per cent on Friday, traders are wondering whether any of this second quarter growth spurt can be retained – and what it means for equities indices. Despite this good news, the Dax actually fell from over 6,160 to under 6,080 after [...]
Eastern lights: Asia’s sleepless city August 15, 2010 A BRILLIANT meeting of East and West, it offers an unforgettable introduction to the Orient, and is the perfect place to explore a different culture while taking in the rugby at the Hong Kong Sevens (and, for the sports-mad, the golf at the Hong Kong Open Championship and the horse-racing at Happy Valley). Or just [...]