Blow for Northern Rock credit holders as it halts bond payouts August 18, 2009 NATIONALISED lender Northern Rock shocked bond markets yesterday by ceasing payouts on several of its bonds in a bid to hoard cash ahead of a further £3bn government bailout. The value of the failed sub-prime mortgage lender’s credit plummeted as it announced it is to delay all payments where it is legally possible. The lender [...]
NAB snaps up Challenger unit August 18, 2009 National Australia Bank, the top lender in Australia, said yesterday it has agreed to buy Challenger Financial Services’ mortgage unit for A$385m (£192m) to up its market share. NAB said the deal would give it an additional A$4bn worth of residential mortgages. The acquisition follows its purchase of Aviva’s Australian businesses in June for A$825m, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 17, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES 3I TO OFFLOAD EUROPEAN INVESTMENTS3i, former powerhouse of Europe’s venture capital industry, has entered exclusive talks to sell a portfolio of 36 European venture capital investments to a consortium led by Coller Capital and HarbourVest Partners for about £100m. The talks follow 3i’s decision last year to abandon early stage investment in start-up [...]
House prices and home loans showing signs of stabilisation August 11, 2009 HOUSE PRICES rose 1.6 per cent in June on the previous month, narrowing the annual decline to 10.7 per cent, according to official government data published yesterday. The Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said that UK house prices rose by 2.6 per cent in the quarter ending June 2009, compared to a fall [...]
THE LONDON REPORT August 5, 2009 The FTSE 100 closed down 0.5 per cent yesterday, after weaker than expected economic data in the US dragged equities lower, with oil producers and miners leading the losers. The index ended 24.24 points lower at 4,647.13, shy of Monday’s close when it hit its best closing level since the collapse of Lehman Brothers late [...]
UK housing market shows more signs of stabilisation as prices surge in July August 5, 2009 HOUSE prices in Britain rose 1.1 per cent in July in the latest sign of growing stability in the property market, data from Halifax showed yesterday. The mortgage lender reported that in the three months to July, house prices jumped 0.8 per cent, the first rise on a quarterly basis since October 2007. The rise [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 5, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES FERREXPO SEES IRON MARKET SHIFTFerrexpo signalled that iron ore demand was shifting back to Europe after being heavily reliant on China, as the Ukranian miner unveiled an 81 per cent drop in first-half profits. Ferrexpo reacted to the collapse in demand from steelmakers in Austria by selling iron ore pellets to China, incurring [...]
Rock suffers on bad debts August 4, 2009 NATIONALISED mortgage lender Northern Rock posted a £724.2m first-half loss yesterday, as the number of bad debts trebled. The bank, taken into public ownership in February last year, wrote down £602.2m in bad loans, up 214 per cent on the £191.6m in writedowns it took in the first half of 2008. The outlook for the [...]
Not all banks were given state handouts August 4, 2009 ANOTHER day; another row about banking profits, bonuses and the future of the City. The nationalised Northern Rock’s numbers were poor as expected – but for some reason, the pundits are more concerned with banks that are doing reasonably well. And not any institution: they couldn’t care less about Standard Chartered, a well-managed group which [...]
Bullish HSBC shrugs off rise in bad debts August 3, 2009 HSBC saw first-half profits cut in half in the first six months of the year, as impairments reached $13.9bn (£8.2bn), but signalled that the economic crisis was beginning to ease. Pre-tax profit fell to $5bn, a 51 per cent decline on the $10.25bn earned in the same period of last year, but a marked turnaround [...]