Chevron in move to tap into Russia’s Arctic oil March 1, 2012 US oil major Chevron has held talks with a Russian government official in a bid to exploit some of the country’s Arctic oil reserves. The reserves are currently off limits for non-state corporations, but Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources said the situation is under review. The statement came a day after Russian Prime Minister Vladimir [...]
A plan for UK growth needs more than warm words: An entrepreneur’s call to arms March 1, 2012 LIKE most entrepreneurs, I love my business and I want to grow it. It would seem, from all the government’s powerful rhetoric, that David Cameron loves my business, too. After all, the official line is that this is the year the government needs to unlock the creativity and entrepreneurial talent buried deep in many of [...]
Greece puts gas group up for sale as privatisation programme kicks off February 29, 2012 GREECE has invited bids for state-owned gas company DEPA, as it moves ahead with a privatisation programme meant to raise €19bn (£15.9bn) by 2015. According to an offer document published yesterday, the government is considering a “bundled” sale of DEPA, combining its wholesale, trading and gas supply business as well as its DESFA networks and [...]
Greece open to offers for state gas company DEPA February 29, 2012 Greece has invited bids for state-owned gas company DEPA, as it moves ahead with a privatisation programme targeted to raise 19 billion euros (£16bn) by 2015. According to an offer document published on Wednesday, the government is considering a “bundled” sale of DEPA, combining its wholesale, trading and gas supply business as well as its [...]
From Russia with fusion food February 27, 2012 Novikov 50a Berkeley Street, W1J 8HA T NW1 7JN , Tel: 020 7387 5277 FOOD *** SERVICE *** ATMOSPHERE **** Cost per person without wine: £50 It’s Russian, it’s huge, it’s in Mayfair and it has doormen inside and out, guarding its two restaurants and thumping bar. To me this sounded dubious, a blingy hangar [...]
DAVID CAMERON PERFORMS BONUS U-TURN AT TOP BUSINESS SUMMIT February 23, 2012 TO MANSION House for a royal visit from HRH the Prince of Wales and Prime Minister David Cameron, who were all there for the Business in the Community summit. Cameron used his speech to claim that big business was a “powerful force for social progress” and to launch a scathing attack on “anti-business snobbery”. But [...]
BAT in £1.25bn buy back February 23, 2012 British American Tobacco , the world’s second-biggest cigarette maker, increased its share buyback to £1.25bn ($1.96 billion) after it raised prices and saw strong growth in emerging markets to help boost its annual earnings. The London-based maker of Kent, Dunhill, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes completed a share buyback of 750 million pounds in [...]
Why it is time to rename the Bric nations the Bics February 22, 2012 IT HAS been clear for some time that global growth for the foreseeable future will not be driven by Europe and the US, but rather by the so-called Bric countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. This group of countries, representing around a third of the world’s population, now form a loose but increasingly vocal [...]
Yandex to show new tweets February 21, 2012 Twitter has joined hands with Yandex in a deal to allow Russia’s top search engine to display new tweets almost instantly in the results it brings up. While the companies declined to give financial details of their partnership, a similar deal saw Microsoft – whose search engine Bing has less than one percentage point more [...]
STOCK EXCHANGE BLOCKS STELIOS FROM AIRING HIS LATEST ATTACK February 21, 2012 EASYJET founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has never been shy about letting the airline’s management know what he really thinks. But yesterday’s attack on chairman Mike Rake’s team, in which he paints EasyJet lawyers Herbert Smith in an unflattering light, was the straw that broke the London Stock Exchange’s back – it refused to publish the [...]