Fat lot of good: Ennis silences critics with British record show May 27, 2012 LONDON 2012 prospect Jessica Ennis gave her Olympic gold hopes a huge boost by breaking the British heptathlon record in her final contest with her main medal rivals before the Games. Ennis blew away the field in Gotzis, Austria yesterday with a score of 6,909 points – the best by any woman for five years [...]
Companies pull London IPOs May 24, 2012 London’s reputation as a global centre for capital markets suffered another blow yesterday when a third company pulled its planned London Stock Exchange listing in the space of a fortnight. Georgian Railway blamed market turmoil as it postponed plans to raise up to $250m (£160m) by selling as much as a quarter of its stock. [...]
Asian demand for beer boosts SABMiller profit May 24, 2012 KEEN drinkers in emerging markets have boosted the world’s second-largest brewer SABMiller’s profits by 75 per cent to $4.2bn (£2.68bn). The annual results, which include a one-off gain from the sale of SABMiller’s Russian and Ukrainian operations, saw revenues grow by 11 per cent to $31.38bn and pre-tax profits climb 55 per cent to $5.6bn. [...]
Fresh blow to London as Tungsten delays its float May 23, 2012 TUNGSTEN, the British bid vehicle founded by Edmund and Danny Truell, yesterday announced a raincheck on its IPO. Citing adverse market conditions, the financial services investment fund said it was postponing its flotation, set to raise £200m. The announcement will come as a blow to the London Stock Exchange, which was expecting to list Tungsten [...]
Russian billionaires in High Court showdown May 23, 2012 A BATTLE between two Israeli-Russian billionaires over profits from the Angolan diamond industry kicked off yesterday in the High Court, with witnesses including a chief Rabbi and the former head of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Arkady Gaydamak is suing his ex-business partner Lev Leviev in an attempt to enforce an agreement that he claims was [...]
Sechin takes the helm at Rosneft May 22, 2012 Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev yesterday appointed Igor Sechin as chief executive of state-controlled Rosneft, putting the man who ran energy policy in the last government in charge of Russia’s largest oil company. Sechin recently masterminded three offshore deals with western oil majors. He pledged to boost Rosneft’s production in taking the post.
Costly new Italian is a safe bet for good clients May 21, 2012 RESTAURANT COTIDIE 50 Marylebone High Street, W1U 5HN Tel: 020 7258 9878 FOOD *** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE *** You wouldn’t think London needed yet another high-end Italian restaurant. Well, apparently, it does – or at least, it won’t say no to one. For a late sitting one recent Thursday, the (fairly) new Cotidie was surprisingly [...]
Social Networkers: the instant billionaires set to benefit from Facebook May 17, 2012 MARK ZUCKERBERG Facebook founder and chief executive Stake: 27.9% The Harvard dropout, who created Facebook in his college dorm room in 2004, will control 55.8 per cent of the voting power after Facebook’s IPO. JIM BREYER Angel investor Stake: 11.2% Jim Breyer, a partner at Accel, was one of Facebook’s earliest investors. He is selling [...]
Russian gold miner Polyus eyes LSE listing May 17, 2012 POLYUS, Russia’s largest gold producer, said yesterday that it expects to complete a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange next month and is likely to join the FTSE 100 index. “As already the largest gold producer in Russia and one of the top ten globally, Polyus Gold aspires to become one of the world’s [...]
Early Facebook investors to sell bigger stakes May 16, 2012 FACEBOOK yesterday increased the number of shares on sale by a quarter, setting itself up for a possible $18.4bn (£11.6bn) flotation tomorrow. The social media behemoth added a further 96.4m shares to its offering, bringing the total number on sale to 484.4m, At the higher end of the $34 to $38 price range, the flotation [...]