Chesnara buys closed life fund from Direct Line October 8, 2013 INSURANCE-focused takeover specialist Chesnara said it would buy Direct Line’s domestic closed life insurance business for about £39.3m in cash. Chesnara, which has been looking to acquire life insurance funds in Western Europe for the past year, said the deal would be partly financed by a new loan facility of £73.8m from the Royal Bank [...]
GM to buy back preferred shares September 23, 2013 General Motors said yesterday it would buy back just under half of its preferred shares held by the United Auto Workers healthcare trust for about $3.2bn, cutting costs by financing the deal with lower-cost debt. To finance the purchase of 120m of the Series A preferred stock from the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust at [...]
States sell down General Motors September 11, 2013 The US and Canadian governments have sold off shares in General Motors in recent days, taking the car firm closer to escaping state control. America’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp) raised $811m (£513m) by selling down its stake in GM during August, a report to the Treasury revealed, taking the total it has recovered from [...]
Innovative company of the year September 11, 2013 CITY A.M.’s Innovation of the Year category salutes businesses that are frontrunners in their industry, from gaming to finance. This year’s shortlist includes insurance, Big Data and wealth management. The winner will have shown a genuinely innovative approach to business, be disruptive in their industry, and have achieved key milestones this year. CONFUSED.COM The insurance [...]
Car sales rev up as registrations rise for the 11th month in a row February 6, 2013 THE UK’S resurgent car-buying market shows no sign of slipping down a gear in 2013, having recorded its 11th straight month of growth in January. New car registrations jumped 11.5 per cent last month compared to the same time a year earlier, with 143,643 vehicles registered. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which [...]
Why Labour is the natural party of small business and entrepreneurs February 5, 2013 “You’re all the same” is the complaint often levelled at politicians. But this cannot be said of small businesses, even if the increasing use of “SME” as a shorthand for small and medium-sized enterprises can give the opposite impression. One of my resolutions for 2013 is to stop using the term. It doesn’t do justice [...]
The money delusion: How I escaped the misery of my millions January 7, 2013 THE girl was absolutely gorgeous and I was thrilled to be chatting her up. It was about 2.30 in the morning and I sat with her in Jimmy’z in Monaco, a very expensive nightclub, drinking Cristal, a very expensive champagne. “What do you do?” she asked, music thumping in the background. I tried to adopt [...]
Close Bros does well but weak securities drag November 22, 2012 FINANCIAL services group Close Brothers said yesterday it has made a solid start to its new financial year, though its Winterflood Securities arm continues to suffer from low trading volumes. The FTSE 250-listed firm’s loan book has grown four per cent to £4.3bn, Close said in a trading update for the quarter to the end [...]
What the other papers say this morning November 21, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Man Group gains from prototype Man Group, the world’s second largest hedge fund manager, has shifted $1.5bn (£940m) of its flagship computerised fund AHL into an experimental new portfolio to boost ailing returns. The new vehicle, which Man has internally dubbed “evolution”, has made 18 per cent so far this year, and made [...]
What the other papers say this Morning November 1, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Israel veto ends PotashCorp merger Israel says it will block Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan’s attempt to buy rival fertiliser Israel Chemicals, derailing a $15bn (£9.3bn) deal to create the world’s largest potash producer. The veto is the latest example of growing resource nationalism, in which governments block foreign attempts to buy mining, oil, [...]