Silver lining for Great Britain after securing best-ever Euro medal haul August 1, 2010 GREAT BRITAIN’S athletes swept to treble medal success in Barcelona last night to secure their best-ever return at a European Championships. Martyn Rooney led home the men’s 4x400m relay team to silver in the final event of the championships, taking the medal tally to 19 over the five days, one more than achieved in Split [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 29, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES LI KA-SHING PAYS £5.8BN FOR UK UTILITY EDF of France is set to sell its UK electricity networks business to Cheung Kong Infrastructure of Hong Kong for £5.8bn, 45 per cent more than the price originally suggested for the deal, according to a person close to the negotiations. The state-controlled French electricity group [...]
BP in Venezuelan asset sale talks with Russian JV July 29, 2010 BP IS currently negotiating a deal that could see it sell off some of its Venezuelan assets to joint venture partner TNK-BP. The Russian group, which is split between BP and a consortium of oligarchs known as AAR, is considering the South American purchase in a bid to pursue plans to expand internationally. Analysts estimate [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 28, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES ICBC SAYS IT WILL RAISE £4.26BN Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s largest lender by market value, said yesterday it planned to raise up to £4.26bn in a rights issue in Hong Kong and Shanghai to shore up its capital base. The rights issue is the latest in a string of [...]
Conoco says it will sell off Lukoil stake July 28, 2010 CONOCOPHILLIPS, the third-largest US oil company, yesterday said it will sell its entire stake in Russian oil major Lukoil in a bid to boost shareholder returns as it reported better-than-expected quarterly profit. The Houston company, which has a two-year plan to shrink debt by selling $10bn (£6.4bn) in assets, said it will sell 40 per [...]
Hayward: I was vilified over spill July 27, 2010 OUTGOING BP boss Tony Hayward yesterday claimed he was “demonised and vilified” over the firm’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis. But the embattled leader, who is set to hand over the chief executive role in October to BP’s managing director Bob Dudley, accepted the company could not move forward with him at the helm. [...]
Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse snap up stakes in Bank of Moscow July 27, 2010 MAJOR international banks Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse have bought small stakes in state-run Bank of Moscow, an encouraging sign for Russia as it considers a broader sale of the state’s financial assets. As part of a $29bn (£18.6bn) fund-raising effort to plug gaps in the budget, Russia is looking at the sale of minority [...]
FUND MANAGEMENT NEWS July 27, 2010 HEDGE FUND REVIEW IS LESS THAN ROSY The Dow Jones Credit Suisse Hedge Fund Index released its first half 2010 industry review yesterday and it was fairly sober reading. The good news was that, so far in 2010, hedge funds have outperformed many global stock indices. However, the returns were far from lacklustre at 0.6 [...]
Hayward sent off to Siberia July 26, 2010 BP’S BELEAGUERED chief executive Tony Hayward will stand down in October and is expected to be nominated for a non-executive board directorship with TNK-BP, the group’s Russian joint venture. The oil major is set to announce Hayward’s departure this morning and will reveal that Mississippi-born Bob Dudley, the man in charge of the oil spill [...]
Strand founder strikes back at legal claim over Sibir fees July 26, 2010 ADVISERS acting for Strand Partners founder and former chairman Richard Fenhalls have hit back at claims he owes the firm a share of the £7.6m in advisory fees paid to him last year by oil firm Sibir Energy. Strand Partners – now named Strand Hanson – has initiated legal proceedings against Fenhalls to try and [...]