News

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

BNP Paribas books 45pc rise in profit

November 5, 2009

INVESTMENT banking and acquisitions helped France’s BNP Paribas to beat forecasts with higher third-quarter profits, but it was silent about whether it may buy parts of ailing British banks. Assets bought by BNP?from Fortis boosted the eurozone’s second-largest bank after Spain’s Santander, as well as taking investment banking and wealth management market share from rivals [...]
Toyota in profit but in for a bumpy ride

November 5, 2009

TOYOTA’S surprise quarterly profit and halving of its annual loss forecast failed to convince investors the world’s biggest carmaker is back on track, as government subsidies peter out and a strong yen takes its toll. Major Japanese automakers have raised their forecasts for the year to March 2010 as they squeeze out savings and government [...]
Holiday-goers turn to EasyJet

November 5, 2009

EASYJET, the orange-crested no-frills carrier, said it carried 6.6 per cent more passengers in October than the same month last year. Seeking to scrimp even as the UK emerges from the economic slump, 4.22m passengers flew with EasyJet last month, despite the airline having made a series of cost cutting measures last month. EasyJet’s load [...]
Nat Ex loses its East line early

November 5, 2009

THE East Coast Main Line rail franchise, which runs services from London to Edinburgh, will be transferred to a government-controlled company on 13 November, a month earlier than anticipated, the Department of Transport (DfT) said yesterday. The franchise, which will be handed back by ailing bus and rail operator National Express after it ran up [...]
Zurich shares tumble after poor earnings

November 5, 2009

SHARES in Zurich Financial Services tumbled yesterday after Switzerland’s biggest insurer disappointed with its third quarter profits. Zurich posted a third quarter net profit of $909m (£548m) that was five times higher than the same period a year earlier. The market had expected a result around $1.15bn but the overall result was pulled down by [...]
Off-licence administrator begins to slash workforce

November 5, 2009

THE administrators of the collapsed company behind the Threshers and Wine Rack off-licence chains are to shut hundreds of shops and cut more than 1,700 jobs, it emerged yesterday. KPMG said 373 stores owned by First Quench Retailing will close, leading to more than 1,738 redundancies. First Quench Retailing, which went into administration last week, [...]
Google launch of Dashboard privacy control

November 5, 2009

GOOGLE has launched a new “dashboard” control panel to help users adjust their privacy settings. Google Dashboard gives users access to all their Google account privacy controls through a single portal. The Google Dashboard pulls in all the information stored on Google’s accounts including details of emails, website visits and YouTube videos viewed. It also [...]
M&C predicts worst is over in hotel slump

November 5, 2009

HOTELIER Millennium & Copthorne yesterday said the worst of the recession may be over as its rate of revenue decline slowed but warned it could take more than two years for trading to recover to the levels seen in 2007. M&C, which operates 120 hotels across the world, said revenue per available room (Revpar), a [...]
Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom in deal to become UK’s biggest operator

November 5, 2009

DEUTSCHE Telekom and France Telecom last night signed the final agreement to combine T-Mobile and Orange to create the UK’s largest mobile operator. The two parent companies had been carrying out due diligence on the 50-50 venture, which was first announced on 8 September. It will now have to go to the regulators for approval, [...]
BURNS TO HEAD CHANNEL FOUR

November 5, 2009

Former Treasury adviser Lord Burns was yesterday confirmed as the new chairman of Channel Four, replacing Luke Johnson. Burns, the former permanent secretary to the Treasury, carried out a review of the BBC for the then culture secretary Tessa Jowell in 2006.