FTSE sees boost from M&A muted by outlook warnings February 2, 2012 BRITAIN’S top share index paused yesterday after recent sharp gains with a rally in miners on the prospects of a big sector merger counterbalanced by warnings from bluechips of a tough year ahead. The FTSE 100 finished 0.1 per cent, or 5.35 points, higher at 5,796.07, retreating from a six-month intra-day high of 5,809.82 after [...]
Glencore in merger talks with Xstrata February 2, 2012 Xstrata said it had received an approach from commodities giant Glencore International that could lead to an all share merger of equals. Miner Xstrata is in talks with Glencore over an all-share merger of equals, it said on Thursday, confirming reports of a deal that could create a combined mining and trading group worth more [...]
Tips to take away from the Ruspetro flotation January 23, 2012 THE successful flotation of Ruspetro, the Russian oil and gas explorer, is being looked on by many in the City as an opportunity to finally get a moribund IPO market off the ground. It’s the first main market listing of the year and it follows a period during which only the most courageous or crazy [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 23, 2012 WEIR GROUP JP Morgan Cazenove has downgraded the engineering group from “overweight” to “neutral”, and says it expects uncertainty about near-term development in demand for fracking equipment to weigh on its share price. The company has been in the top three share price performers over the last two years. The broker expects continued growth this [...]
Floats fall by 40pc in 2011 market slide January 4, 2012 COMPANIES raised almost a third less capital on stock markets worldwide in 2011 as they did in 2010, as a slump in global equity markets deepened throughout last year, new data yesterday showed. The total amount of equity raised on capital markets worldwide fell 30 per cent year-on-year to $628.3bn (£403.3bn), with the second half [...]
Onward and upwards in 2012 please December 22, 2011 AS the business year draws to a close, there is one last opportunity to reflect on what has gone before, and to consider what might lie ahead. In the financial world, 2011 will forever be remembered as the year the wheels fell off the euro. The single currency is still intact, but nobody quite knows [...]
Equity deal volumes down by 31pc in 2011 December 20, 2011 THE GLOBAL market in new equity shrank by nearly a third this year in a stark indication of the damage done to capital markets by ongoing political turmoil all over the world. Annual figures from Dealogic show the amount of cash raised by issuing new shares has dropped to $621bn this year, down 31 per [...]
Goldfields bought in £1.5bn deal December 18, 2011 CANADIAN miner Eldorado Gold has struck a C$2.5bn (£1.55bn) takeover deal for European Goldfields, which owns a swathe of gold and base metal mines in Greece, Turkey and Romania. The agreement sees European Goldfield’s former suitor, Qatar Holdings, routed despite signing a deal to buy a chunk of the miner’s shares and hand it a [...]
Miners fuel FTSE gains December 16, 2011 The FTSE 100 continued where it left off in the last session with a moderate rally fuelled by positive data from the US. US weekly jobless claims fell to a three-year low suggesting that its economic recovery was still on track. But markets still remain braced for credit rating downgrades for Eurozone countries as agencies [...]
Don’t let IPO row endanger London December 15, 2011 GRAFF Diamonds, one of the most famous jewellers in the world, is based in New Bond Street, Mayfair. Its headline web-page promotes London as a sign of its class. And yet its forthcoming flotation, in which it hopes to raise $1bn, is all going on in Hong Kong. There isn’t even a secondary listing in [...]