WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 30, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES VW BRACED FOR “ZERO GROWTH” IN CAR MARKETVolkswagen warned yesterday that it could face flat sales in 2010 as Europe’s largest carmaker reported a sharp profit drop in the second quarter. The third-biggest carmaker behind General Motors and Toyota said it expected “zero growth” in the car market next year. PRIVATE EQUITY SUFFERED [...]
Profits at BP slump by half in downturn July 28, 2009 OIL giant BP yesterday said that second quarter profits had slumped by more than half as it continued to suffer from falling energy demand and a weak oil price. According to the replacement cost profit measure – which strips out gains or losses related to any changes in the value of its fuel stocks – [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 26, 2009 ExecutionThe agency broker has appointed Bruce Howitt, formerly a director of Merrill Lynch’s fixed income business, to head up its newly created agency credit division. Howitt, who will become head of European credit at Execution, previously spent six years with Merrill Lynch, where he managed the non-financials trading desk. He has also formerly held senior [...]
Haye: Watch this David tame the Russian Goliath July 23, 2009 LONDONER David Haye says he can topple Goliath and achieve his world championship dream. Haye, 28, will take on Russian giant Nikolai Valuev for the WBA heavyweight crown on 7 November. Standing at a massive 7ft tall and weighing in at 23 stone, Valuev is nine inches taller and eight stone heavier than Haye. But [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 21, 2009 Julius BaerMarion Williams has joined the Swiss wealth management firm to promote its product range to UK clients and focus on third party relationships, including fund platforms and distributors. Williams joins the team from Threadneedle, where she worked with life companies, platforms, fund of funds, stockbrokers, IFAs and private banks. Prior to that, she was [...]
GM examines final Opel bids July 20, 2009 GENERAL Motors, the ailing US carmaker, is mulling over three takeover offers for its European business and is in talks with the UK and German governments to nail down the final terms of a deal. The bids include one by a consortium of Canadian car parts firm Magna and Russian-controlled Sberbank, one by Belgian private [...]
Green dreams: a Moon Race for the 21st Century July 19, 2009 FORTY years ago today Neil Armstrong jumped off the ladder of his Eagle landing module as the US finally won the decade long battle with Russia to put the first man on the moon. NASA won, not by luck, but because it put in place a countrywide programme costing over $100bn (£61bn) in today’s money [...]
The lady with the power of heeling July 16, 2009 FOR more than a century, we have been heeling exceptional people,” says Olga Berluti, doyenne of the bespoke shoe business and maker of some of the most sought-after men’s footwear around. You sense she could mean “healing” too – she has an almost moral belief in the value fine shoes bring to her customers. For [...]
RHJ plans offer of 300m for a stake in Opel July 14, 2009 RHJ INTERNATIONAL, a rival bidder to frontrunner Magna for German carmaker Opel, is planning to offer around €300m (£256.9m) for a stake of just over 50 per cent in the group, it emerged yesterday. RHJ’s bid comes in below the €660m that Beijing Automotive (BAIC) intends to invest for a 51 per cent stake in [...]
New stock value for Facebook July 13, 2009 Digital Sky Technologies (DST), the Russian investment firm that invested $200m in Facebook this spring, is offering $14.77 (£9.09) a share for stock in the social network, in a deal that values it at around $6.5bn. The new valuation is lower than the $10bn valuation at which DST originally invested, as well as the $15bn [...]