Banks and champagne are out, but the Tory big beast is still standing May 4, 2010 KEN Clarke has gone awol. He left the last campaign stop at the same time as his chief of staff, who has long since arrived, but is nowhere to be seen. “He insists on driving himself,” one aide tells me, with an exasperated look. Eventually, forty-five minutes after we’re supposed to meet, he storms into [...]
Making returns on the Russian rouble just got a whole lot easier May 4, 2010 AT THE end of last week, the Russian central bank chose to cut interest rates by 25 basis points to encourage loan growth and stimulate the economy – despite mounting concerns about inflationary pressures. Bank Rossii has been making it increasingly clear that the monetary easing cycle is now slowing. Indeed, finance minister Alexei Kudrin [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 3, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES DERIPASKA IN NEW LISTING Oleg Deripaska, the Russian billionaire, is preparing to float a second resource company in Hong Kong just three months after the controversial $2.2bn initial public offering of Rusal, his aluminium group. Strikeforce Mining and Resources aims to raise as much as $200m this month, according to people close to [...]
HIGH FLYER LOSES COURT CASE May 3, 2010 A HIGH-FLYING marketing executive who accused her boss of sexual harassment and trying to hire Russian hitmen to kill her has had her £4m compensation claim quashed by an employment tribunal. Jordan Wimmer, 29, was described as not being a “persuasive” witness in her lurid case against multi-millionaire Mark Lowe of Nomos Capital.
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 29, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES STEEL INDUSTRY SET FOR A ‘NEW VOLATILITY’ Lakshmi Mittal warned yesterday that the impending large rise in the costs of iron ore would lead to “new volatility” in the steel industry by pushing up prices of the metal in a development that could harm the competitiveness of some of ArcelorMittal’s European plants. The [...]
ENI to approve EDF entry into South Stream April 29, 2010 Eni should approve French utility EDF’s entry to its South Stream gas pipeline venture within weeks, giving a boost to the mammoth project which had appeared to be stalling as gas prices plunged. Eni chief executive Paolo Scaroni yesterday said the allocation of a stake to EDF did not necessarily have to be equally split [...]
KEBEDE IS THE MARATHON KING April 25, 2010 ETHIOPIA’S Tsegaye Kebede claimed victory in the London Marathon yesterday in a time of 2:05.19 – the third-fastest in the race’s 30-year history. Liliya Shobukhova became the first Russian to win the women’s event, while Britain’s David Weir was denied a fifth victory in the wheelchair race after suffering a puncture. Over 35,000 fun runners [...]
Usmanov cash quadruples to £4.7bn April 22, 2010 ALISHER Usmanov, Arsenal’s second largest shareholder, saw his fortune more than quadruple in the last year, according to new estimates. The figures, part of Forbes magazine’s list of the 10 richest football club moguls, show the Russian’s wealth swelled by £3.6bn to £4.7bn. That amount looks like small change, however, next to QPR shareholder Lakshmi [...]
BACON TOP OF THE CROP OF RICH LIST HEDGIES April 22, 2010 IT’S been rich pickings indeed for the hedge fund community this year, if leaked information from the Sunday Times Rich List’s rundown of the wealthiest hedgies in town is anything to go by. Apart from two individuals whose wealth has stayed the same over the past year (Nat Rothschild at Atticus and Steven Heinz at [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 19, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES HCL FUELS DEBATE The head of one of India’s biggest IT outsourcing companies has waded into the debate on UK public sector efficiency savings, complaining of an “old boys’ network” in government procurement. Vineet Nayar, chief executive of HCL Technologies, hit out at the “stranglehold of a few companies” in Britain’s £17bn market [...]