Angry Birds leads iPhone app boom as boss gets paid $376m January 9, 2012 FACEBOOK and the Angry Birds game were the most downloaded apps of 2011, Apple revealed yesterday, and the remaining eight of the top 10 were all games. Early last month Apple said its 2011 app downloads had smashed through the 100m mark. The technology giant’s chief executive Tim Cook received almost $1m (£646,700) in cash [...]
UK firms may face £1trn bill for pensions January 3, 2012 UK COMPANIES could be forced to pay an estimated £1 trillion of extra funds into their pension schemes if EU plans to regulate them in the same way as banks take effect, a leading actuary warned yesterday. Firms may have to push at least £600bn into their schemes under new proposals that aim to make [...]
German insurer set to test new issues market November 28, 2011 THERE is some positive news from Hannover, where Talanx Group, Germany’s third largest insurance entity, is considering a flotation. According to sources, there’s already been a beauty parade of potential advisers and a timetable should follow in short order. There’s one adviser in situ; Rothschild has been appointed to advise Talanx on the sale. The [...]
Dexia rescue fears spark stocks slump November 23, 2011 EUROPEAN banking stocks were spooked yesterday over fears the €90bn (£77bn) deal to rescue Franco-Belgian bank Dexia could be about to unravel. Financial stocks fell in Britain, France and Belgium after a report that Paris and Brussels were at loggerheads over short-term funding guarantees designed to allow Dexia’s “bad bank” to come off emergency liquidity [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 22, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES NOMURA STEPS UP ASSET SALE PLANS Nomura has approached big private equity firms about the possible sale of domestic businesses, including its real estate arm, as the Japanese bank moves to shore up its capital buffers. Several people familiar with the preliminary talks with parties including KKR and TPG said the bank was [...]
Pandora’s Europe turnover falls November 22, 2011 Danish jewellery maker Pandora promised a turnaround plan would start to show results next year, after posting a 32 per cent drop in quarterly operating profit. Pandora, which floated in Copenhagen last year, said its sales in Europe declined 28.6 per cent, while sales in the Americas grew 4.1 per cent and Asia Pacific fell [...]
Groupon share price soars after IPO November 4, 2011 US daily voucher site Groupon has seen its share price jump by more than 50 per cent in their first day of stock market trading. The shares rose as high as $31.14, or 55.7 per cent above the IPO price, in early trading on the Nasdaq, at one point pushing the market value of the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 18, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES FEARS OVER RETREAT ON VOLCKER BANK RULES The Volcker rule, which bans US banks from trading for their own account, is set to include exemptions that some officials fear will weaken its impact, people familiar with the situation have warned. In the wake of UBS’s $2.3bn (£1.4bn) loss last week, alleged to have [...]
Pandora Media sees profit rise August 25, 2011 Online music company Pandora Media posted better-than-expected quarterly revenues and profits yesterday in its maiden results as a public company. Just two months after joining the public market, Pandora said sales more than doubled to $67m (£41m) and its underlying profit was $0.20 per share. Shares in Pandora, which sells advertising for mobile phones and [...]
Pandora IPO adviser gets referred to Danish police over disclosure failure August 16, 2011 THE IPO of jewellery maker Pandora came under further attack yesterday when the Danish financial market regulator referred one of its advisers to the police. Denmark’s Financial Supervisory Authority said Nordea Bank Denmark had failed to report the fact that it held a large financial position in Pandora prior to its flotation last October. Nordea [...]