June IPO planned for SUEK March 30, 2011 RUSSIAN coal giant SUEK is planning a $1bn (£623m) float in London by the end of June, City A.M. has learned. The float is being shopped around some of the world’s biggest investors in commodities during pre-marketing meetings in London, with BlackRock and Renaissance Capital having been approached. The deal, which is being led by [...]
Bribery Act to hit Olympics March 30, 2011 THE BRIBERY Act could hit corporate hospitality bookings at the London 2012 Olympic games, despite assurances that it is not intended to target “genuine” hospitality. In the long-awaited guidance to the Act, released yesterday after a delay of more than two months, the Ministry of Justice sought to reassure companies that “bona fide hospitality…is recognised [...]
BP shares drop on worries of criminal charges for Gulf spill March 29, 2011 BP saw its shares drop 2.2 per cent yesterday after it emerged that executives at the oil major might face criminal charges for their role in last April’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. BP was the biggest faller in the FTSE 100 yesterday, closing at 466.55p. The shares have been under pressure since a tribunal blocked its [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 28, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES ICBC HEAD PLAYS DOWN POST-CRISIS LOAN RISK China’s largest bank lent Rmb640bn ($61bn) to local governments in the post-crisis credit boom, but insists these loans do not pose a danger to the country’s banking system. In an interview with the Financial Times, Jiang Jianqing, chairman of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the [...]
Big BP shareholder slams Rosneft deal March 28, 2011 ONE OF BP’s biggest shareholders spoke out against its revised plan to swap shares with Rosneft yesterday. David Cummings, head of UK equities at Standard Life Investments said in an interview: “[T]he logic for doing the £5bn share swap with Rosneft has gone in our view. I mean they’ve just had their joint venture blocked, [...]
Goldman gets off to a slow start in the M&A leagues March 28, 2011 Maybe it just says something about the company I’m keeping but I’ve recently been drawn into countless discussions about the relative underperformance of Goldman Sachs in the latest Thomson Reuters mergers and acquisitions (M&A) rankings. In the worldwide category, Goldman, normally such a predictable M&A machine, slumped from first to fourth. In M&A with a [...]
Waterstone keen on HMV March 28, 2011 TIM Waterstone may be poised to buy back the bookshop chain that bears his name after he and his business partners entered into exclusive talks with its owner, HMV Group. Waterstone, 71, has teamed up with Russian millionaire Alexander Mamut in a a bid to seize control of the debt-laden chain. HMV Group issued a [...]
Hamilton glee as Vettel lays marker March 27, 2011 ENGLAND’S Lewis Hamilton vowed to rein in champion Sebastian Vettel after the German got his title defence off to the ideal start with a pole-to-flag victory at the Australian grand prix. Vettel underlined his status as hot favourite to win the drivers’ title again with an exemplary performance in Melbourne, the Red Bull driver comfortably [...]
FTSE rallies on strong corporate news March 25, 2011 Strong corporate earnings data have pulled stocks back to levels prior to Japan’s earthquake and tsunami crisis today despite fresh unrest spreading in the Middle East. The FTSE 100 closed up 0.34 per cent at 5,900.76 as traders bought into undervalued stocks and positive broker notes while remaining unfazed by geopolitical issues. “The speed of [...]
BP’s $16bn Russia deal is scuppered March 24, 2011 BP’S historic plans to search for oil in the Arctic were blocked yesterday by its billionaire partners in Russia. The embattled oil giant’s deal with Russian explorer Rosneft has been left hanging by a thread by an international tribunal, which thwarted the pairing at the request of Alfa Access Renova, a group of oligarchs who [...]