News

Your daily news update straight from the City PM newsroom in London

Gulf director buys shares

November 30, 2009

Gulf Keystone Petroleum said its non-executive director Jeremy Asher has purchased 2m shares in the company representing 0.41 per cent of its issued share capital at an average price of 94p per share through an Asher family trust company Agile Energy. The transaction gives Agile Energy a 2.9 per cent interest in the company. This [...]
BP hit by Alaska oil pipe leak

November 30, 2009

BP discovered an oil and gas spill on a pipeline that serves the giant Prudhoe Bay oil fields in Alaska over the weekend, a company spokesman said yesterday. BP was assessing damages after it found the leak early on Sunday, a spokesman said. The line is one of dozens serving Prudhoe Bay, the biggest US [...]
Alesha Dixon dances her way to LAFitness role

November 30, 2009

GYM chain LA Fitness yesterday said it had recruited singer and Strictly Come Dancing star Alesha Dixon as a board adviser. Dixon – who won the hit BBC talent contest before joining the show as a judge – has signed a four-year profit sharing deal with the gym chain. The advisory role is set to [...]
Ross returns to the City as Cosalt chair

November 30, 2009

DAVID Ross, the co-founder of British mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse, has returned to the City as chairman of marine safety group Cosalt, months after he stepped down from this post in the wake of a share disclosure row. In December last year Ross quit a series of high-profile roles when it emerged he had [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS

November 30, 2009

ATKINSInvestec said yesterday Atkins was weathering the economic downturn well, as it continued to adjust its resources to meet expected market demand. The group responded early to the recessionary challenges, it added, which shows in its results. The broker is keeping its “hold” view and raising its target price on the stock. DMGTInvestec also said [...]
International car sales are set for a rise next year as US and China lead the way

November 30, 2009

CAR sales worldwide will reverse their decline next year, analysts at Groupama Asset Management said yesterday, as a strong recovery in the US and a pickup in trade in China offsets tumbling demand in Europe. The analysts said they expected sales worldwide to rise four per cent in 2010 despite a drop off in government [...]
Borders administrators wield the axe on 36 staff

November 30, 2009

BORDERS, the bookshop that has fallen into administration, yesterday made its first round of redundancies. Joint administrators Phil Duffy, Geoff Bouchier and David Whitehouse of MCR announced that a total of 36 employees based at the London head office of Borders have been made redundant. Duffy said that the redundancies did not impact the business [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS

November 30, 2009

Panmure Gordon Panmure Gordon yesterday announced it has hired Ed Warner to its Board as a non-executive director from 1 December 2009. Warner, 46, is currently chairman of UK Athletics Limited, the sport’s national governing body, and Tradefair Holdings. He is also a non-executive director of Clarkson, Moneycorp Markets, The Eastern European Trust, Standard Life [...]
CENTRAL BANK ACTS TO HALT DUBAI ROUT

November 29, 2009

The United Arab Emirates’ central bank has issued emergency credit facilities to banks in the region amid mounting fears that Dubai’s debt crisis could contaminate the rest of the Middle East. The bank – based in Abu Dhabi – issued a statement yesterday saying it “stands behind local and foreign banks operating in the country” [...]
UK and US slam Iran’s atomic plan

November 29, 2009

IRAN defied heads of state and governing bodies worldwide last night, as it announced plans to build 10 new nuclear plants. The Iranian nuclear agency will start work on five uranium enrichment sites over the next two months, Tehran said, with five more to be set up at a later date, with the aim of [...]