News

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

US officials at odds over bailout for CIT

July 14, 2009

US GOVERNMENT officials were last locked in debate over whether to throw a lifeline to ailing business lender CIT Group. Despite fears that CIT’s financial woes could spell disaster for up to a million small and medium-sized businesses, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) is resisting calls to offer the firm access to its loan [...]
FSA promises to restore trust

July 14, 2009

FINANCIAL Services Authority (FSA) chairman Lord Adair Turner last night vowed to restore consumer trust in financial services. Turner said the City watchdog’s financial capability programme would inform consumers, while measures to crack down on misconduct would prevent companies from taking advantage of customers. He heralded the government’s decision to expand a money guidance service [...]
OECD countries to lose 30m jobs

July 14, 2009

Developed countries will lose about 30m jobs from the end of 2007 through the end of 2010, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said yesterday, underscoring concerns the global economy has yet to recover from its worst recession in at least seven decades. The job losses were mainly a result of the global financial [...]
Britvic sales fizzing due to sports deals

July 14, 2009

SOFT drinks company Britvic yesterday reported a 5.9 per cent jump in revenues for the three months to 5 July, boosted by a summer of sports sponsorship deals. The group reported a three per cent rise in still drink volumes and an 8.3 per cent jump in revenues, largely thanks to its squash brand Robinsons, [...]
Drop in house prices easing

July 14, 2009

HOUSE prices only fell marginally in May compared to the previous month, taking the annual decline to 12.5 per cent, data from the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) showed yesterday. In the three months to May, UK house prices fell by 0.4 per cent compared to a fall of 4.8 per cent in [...]
Evercore brought in to sell failing BusinessWeek

July 14, 2009

MCGRAW-HILL has hired boutique investment bank Evercore Partners to find it a buyer for its loss-making BusinessWeek magazine, according to sources close to the company. BusinessWeek occupies a niche that includes titles such as Forbes, Fortune and Money. Along with its peers, it has suffered a precipitous drop in ad revenue, in part because of [...]
IASB proposing new fair value rule in wake of crisis

July 14, 2009

THE International Accounting Standards Board ( IASB ) yesterday proposed to simplify a key valuation rule that European Union finance ministers have blamed for amplifying the financial crisis. The Group of 20 (G20) industrialised and emerging market countries agreed in April that the fair value rule should be revised to make company statements clearer for [...]
Thomson Reuters in talks with Breakingviews site

July 14, 2009

THOMSON Reuters, the financial information service, is in takeover talks with Breakingviews.com, the financial analysis company. Breakingviews, which was founded by former Financial Times journalist Hugo Dixon nine years ago, has been expanding rapidly, investing heavily in New York and the far east. It is said to be profitable in Europe but loss-making outside Europe [...]
BA considers a fundraising

July 14, 2009

CASH-strapped airline British Airways (BA) said it was exploring options to raise funds yesterday, as the firm’s directors faced the wrath of its shareholders over controversial cost-cutting plans. Chairman Martin Broughton said at the company’s annual meeting that BA was considering a convertible bond issue as a way of raising cash, while chief executive Willie [...]
RHJ plans offer of 300m for a stake in Opel

July 14, 2009

RHJ INTERNATIONAL, a rival bidder to frontrunner Magna for German carmaker Opel, is planning to offer around €300m (£256.9m) for a stake of just over 50 per cent in the group, it emerged yesterday. RHJ’s bid comes in below the €660m that Beijing Automotive (BAIC) intends to invest for a 51 per cent stake in [...]