Mining and oil stocks drive London to a 16-month high January 4, 2010 Strength in commodity stocks and banks drove Britain’s leading share index to a 16-month closing high yesterday, the first session of 2010, outweighing falls from real estate firms and life insurers. The FTSE 100 closed up 87.46 points, or 1.6 per cent, at 5,500.34, its highest close since Sept. 2, 2008 – the month when [...]
Murray and Robson join forces to hand Britain a winning start January 4, 2010 GREAT BRITAIN recovered from a rubber down to complete a nail-biting victory over minnows Kazakhstan in the Hopman Cup in Perth. Teenager Laura Robson suffered defeat in her opening singles match to a flu-ridden Yaroslava Shvedova, only for men’s No1 Andy Murray to level the tie with a convincing 6-2, 6-2 win over world No133 [...]
Russia halts oil flow to Belarus January 3, 2010 RUSSIA has halted oil supplies to Belarussian refineries after failing to agree terms for 2010, traders said yesterday, threatening a repeat of a dispute which disrupted supplies to elsewhere in Europe three years ago. Deliveries to Belarus refineries were halted after talks broke down on New Year’s Eve. Transit flows to other parts of Europe [...]
Rusal float set to earn millions for Rothschild January 3, 2010 RUSSIAN aluminium firm Rusal, owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, is planning a $2.6bn (£1.6bn) flotation this month, tipped to earn millions for merchant bank NM Rothschild, it emerged yesterday. Rusal will sell 1.61 billion shares at up to HK$12.50 (£1) a share to cut $14.9bn (£9.2bn) of debt in a float set to value Rusal [...]
Gold loses its shine as positive US data signals move away from safety December 21, 2009 NOW could be the time to go short on gold. After a stellar performance during 2010 when the precious metal reached a record high of more than $1,200, the positive trend could be about to come to an end. Investors sold off gold futures yesterday as markets await a spate of economic data releases from [...]
Russian oil explorer Exillon Energy to raise £62m in rare London flotation December 14, 2009 OIL explorer Exillon Energy is to raise about £62m in the first London stock market flotation by a Russian company since the financial crisis began. Exillon, which has operations in the Western Siberia and Komi regions of northern Russia, plans to place 40.5 million shares at 153p each. The IPO represents just under a third [...]
Iraq will be a leading force at Opec’s upcoming meeting, US official says December 13, 2009 IRAQ’S string of deals with oil majors has catapulted it to importance ahead of Opec’s meeting in Angola later this month, according to the US. The oil cartel is set to meet on 22 December, and much focus will be on Iraq following new ambitious output targets set by Baghdad over the weekend. Iraq’s “supergiant” [...]
Sberbank misses profit expectations December 7, 2009 Sberbank, Russia’s biggest lender, missed its forecast for its third quarter net profit but analysts took heart from slowing bad loan growth which they said could pave the way for a stronger performance in the coming months. The state-run bank posted a net profit of 4.2bn roubles (£87.4m) in January-September, undershooting analysts’ forecasts of 5.1bn [...]
Petropavlovsk is only group set to join bluechip FTSE 100 index December 7, 2009 GOLD producer Petropavlovsk, formerly Peter Hambro Mining, is expected to be the only company promoted to the FTSE 100 index when the latest quarterly indexes review is announced tomorrow. Tour operator Thomas Cook Group looks set to be demoted back to the mid caps after a poor run by its shares with the sector hit [...]
UK to lose top economy rank December 6, 2009 THE UK is set to slide out of the world’s top 10 economies by 2015, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). Although the International Monetary Fund and World Bank both ranked the UK sixth in 2008 based on GDP, the CEBR reports that this year the country fell behind Italy to [...]