Shell and PetroChina launch £2bn takeover bid for Arrow March 8, 2010 ROYAL Dutch Shell and PetroChina may have to up their bid if they are to secure their takeover of Australian energy company Arrow Energy. Analysts said the joint venture bid valued at A$3bn (£1.8bn) or A$4.45 per share was below the current trading price of A$5.11 a share. Arrow’s shareholders are also unlikely to sell [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 1, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES TOYODA APOLOGY TOUR IN BEIJING Akio Toyoda, chief executive of Toyota Motor, apologised to Chinese consumers yesterday during a visit to Beijing, as he extended his effort to repair Toyota’s image to the biggest-volume car market in the world. Toyoda flew to China from the US where he had received tough criticism from [...]
Aussie rate hike hangs in the balance February 28, 2010 ONE major central bank will have a difficult decision to make this week but it is not the Bank of England. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) faces a finely balanced decision tomorrow between keeping rates on hold at 3.75 per cent or hiking by 25 basis points. The RBA had surprised markets last month [...]
Toyota chief to woo Chinese February 28, 2010 Toyota Motor’s president Akio Toyoda is set to hold a news conference in Beijing today as the automaker looks to limit the damage from a massive global recall on the fast-growing Chinese market. His aim is to explain to the public about its recent quality issues. The briefing will follow Toyoda’s appearance last week in [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING February 24, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES EMI BANK DEBT BATTLE LEAVES ARTISTS WARY Uncertainty over EMI’s financial future is deterring some leading music industry managers and lawyers from signing artists to its record label as its parent company battles with its bankers over the debt burden of its 2007 buy-out. Terra Firma, the private equity firm run by Guy [...]
LISTED PRODUCT NEWS February 24, 2010 EXCHANGE TRADED CURRENCIES ETF Securities has just launched 10 new currency ETCs which will be listed on the German stock exchange. The new ETCs offer investors long or short exposure to the euro against other G10 currencies, including sterling, the yen, the Swiss franc, the Norwegian krone and the Swedish krona. The sovereign risk problems [...]
THREE EVENTS TO SHAKE UP THE WORLD February 23, 2010 FOLLOWING weeks of turbulence, FX appears to have found temporary support. So this week I want to consider three unlikely, but not improbable, scenarios that could have a radical impact on the markets this year. GREECE IS THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG The news that Greece used complex swaps to improve its budget finances put [...]
CPP hopes to buck the trend of IPO failures in March listing February 18, 2010 INSURANCE firm CPP will brave choppy IPO waters with a March flotation. It has not announced how much it plans to raise but City A.M. has learned the firm hopes to issue up to £30m from new shares, valuing it at £450m. It is believed owner and founder Hamish Ogston will also sell a £150m [...]
RISK TRADE IS HEADING DOWN UNDER February 16, 2010 TURN on financial television these days and you see nothing but a procession of analysts offering their eulogies for the Eurozone. In fact, the worries about the fragmentation of the EU have become so uniform and the chorus of euro bears has become so loud that the euro may be due a bounce as short-term [...]
Play the Asian growth story using the baht February 16, 2010 LAST week the Vietnamese authorities devalued the dong by 3.4 per cent against the US dollar, the second adjustment to the currency in three months. But, its Asian neighbours are not going to follow its lead, and some currencies could actually appreciate in the coming months. The Bank of Thailand specifically ruled out a devaluation, [...]