Mobile giant in plan to float on London market February 3, 2013 THE OWNER of the Orange and T-Mobile phone networks is planning an end-of-year initial public offering that could be London’s biggest stock market listing in over two years. EE, formerly known as Everything Everywhere, is being prepared for a listing that would raise billions for its owners, France Telecom (FT) and Deutsche Telekom (DT). Everything [...]
Best of the Brokers January 31, 2013 STOBART GROUP Espirito Santo rates the logistics firm “sell” with a fair value of 70p. The broker has cut its earnings per share forecasts by around 13 per cent for the next two years, based on a downbeat update from the firm. Espirito Santo is worried about the group’s high and rising levels of debt, [...]
Cable tells all-male FTSE 100 boards to appoint women January 29, 2013 BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable has today written to the remaining FTSE 100 companies with all-male boards, calling on them to take action to appoint women to boardroom positions. The businesses with no top-level female executives are Antofagasta, Croda, Glencore, Xstrata, Kazakhmys, Melrose and Vedanta. All of them are in the traditionally male-dominated engineering, mining and [...]
SA gives nod to Glenstrata January 22, 2013 THE £56bn Glencore-Xstrata mega merger jumped another hurdle yesterday as it won approval from the South African anti-trust authorities. The South African Competition Tribunal gave the green light to the merger, although it recommended that some employment conditions are met, including limiting the number of job losses among skilled workers to 80. Completion of the [...]
Glenstrata completion date pushed back January 18, 2013 Commodities giant Glencore has pushed back the completion date for its tie-up with rival Xstrata as it waits for regulatory approval from South Africa and China. Last month, the miners announced the extension of the “long stop date” for the £56bn merger from 31 December to 31 January. As regulatory processes in South Africa and [...]
Rio Tinto drags FTSE 100 down January 17, 2013 Mining giant Rio Tinto weighed heavily on the FTSE 100 this morning, trading down around 3.5 per cent. This morning it said chief executive Tom Albanese would step down following a $14bn impairment charge relating to several acquisitions. Charles Gibson, head of mining at Edison Investment Research, said this morning: “When a company writes off [...]
Tui Travel and German parent in merger talks January 16, 2013 TUI TRAVEL is in talks to merge with its German parent Tui AG, it announced yesterday, sending its shares up four per cent. However, analysts have raised concerns that the nil-premium merger will not be enough to entice Tui’s UK shareholders. FTSE 100-listed Tui Travel, the group behind holiday companies Thomson and First Choice, said [...]
First Quantum takes Inmet bid to shareholders January 9, 2013 CANADIAN mining giant First Quantum Minerals has taken its bid for fellow miner Inmet hostile, as it yesterday sent takeover documents for its C$5.1bn (£3.2bn) offer directly to Inmet shareholders. Vancouver-based First Quantum, which has assets in Africa, Australia, South America and Europe, last month sweetened its offer for Canadian miner Inmet, offering C$72 in [...]
Mining heiress made to reveal secret accounts January 7, 2013 ONE of the world’s richest women, mining heiress Gina Rinehart, has caved in to regulatory pressure and finally revealed the full extent of her business empire. Rinehart, executive chairman at Australian mining company Hancock Prospecting, has published two years’ worth of business accounts after giving up the fight with Australian financial watchdog the Australian Securities [...]
Markets fly but hangover feared January 2, 2013 MARKETS around the world rallied yesterday after the US agreed an eleventh-hour deal to limit fiscal cliff tax increases and spending cuts, giving equities a much needed boost. The deal averted sharp rises in income-tax for a majority of Americans, but failed to reach any conclusion over cutting the budget deficit, leading analysts to warn the [...]