News

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

Neonet to offer dark liquidity

July 13, 2009

Neonet, Sweden’s largest broker, yesterday announced it has started to offer access to “dark liquidity”, thereby strengthening its buy-side offering further. Neonet is the most recent member of SmartPool, the multi-lateral “dark pool” trading facility launched by NYSE Euronext in partnership with JP Morgan, HSBC and BNP Parabis five months ago. A dark pool is [...]
House prices boosted by fall in stock

July 13, 2009

THERE were more definitive signs yesterday that the UK housing market is beginning to recover, according to June data from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The seasonally-adjusted balance of surveyors reporting falling rather than rising prices improved to -18.1 in June from -43.8 in May, the highest reading since September 2007. Housing market [...]
Cowdery will chase Friends

July 13, 2009

CLIVE Cowdery’s buyout vehicle, Resolution, is prepared to launch a hostile bid for Friends Provident, the life assurance firm led by Trevor Matthews, if it fails to agree a takeover. Cowdery and Matthews may end up battling it out if a friendly deal can’t be struck, with Resolution prepared to ignore the Friends board’s recommendations [...]
Investors rebuff Venture offer from Centrica

July 13, 2009

CENTRICA, the owner of British Gas, faced a setback in its battle to take over Venture Production yesterday, when the North Sea gas producer’s two largest investors backed management’s rejection of the $2bn (£1.2bn) bid. US investment firm ArcLight Capital Partners and one of Venture’s founders, Larry Kinch, which between them control 12.8 per cent [...]
Goldman to unveil soaring revenues

July 13, 2009

GOLDMAN Sachs will report a bumper second quarter today, opening the door for the Wall Street firm to reinstate the hefty bonus awards of the past. Goldman, which kicks off the US banks’ reporting season today, is expected to report revenues of $10.7bn (£6.6bn) for the three months to 30 June, up from $9.4bn in [...]
BusinessWeek is put up for sale

July 13, 2009

BusinessWeek, the McGraw-Hill magazine, was yesterday put up for sale. The magazine, founded in 1929, lost 30 per cent of its advertising revenue in the second quarter, despite claiming it had around 4.8m readers in 140 countries. McGraw Hill has appointed boutique investment bank Evercore Partners to find a buyer and could accept an offer [...]
New stock value for Facebook

July 13, 2009

Digital Sky Technologies (DST), the Russian investment firm that invested $200m in Facebook this spring, is offering $14.77 (£9.09) a share for stock in the social network, in a deal that values it at around $6.5bn. The new valuation is lower than the $10bn valuation at which DST originally invested, as well as the $15bn [...]
French use explosive tactics

July 13, 2009

French car part workers have threatened to blow up a factory unless carmakers Renault and PSA-Peugeot pay compensation for job losses. The 336 workers at the bankrupt New Fabris plant have said they want ¤30,000 (£26,000) each by 31 July or they will detonate canisters of gas.
EC drafts new rules on pay

July 13, 2009

THE European Commission (EC) unveiled new measures to crack down on bank bonuses yesterday, with the publication of a draft law promising to penalise banks whose pay policies encourage risk. The latest planned legislation will concentrate on executive pay, seeking to establish a globally-applied mix of variable and fixed pay that best discourages risk-taking. “It [...]
Sunshine adds some extra sizzle to retail sales in June

July 13, 2009

HOT, sunny weather helped retail sales rise 1.4 per cent on a like-for-like basis in June compared to the same period a year ago, according to figures published today by the British Retail Consortium (BRC). This is much higher than the 0.4 per cent fall in like-for-like sales expected by analysts, raising hopes of rising [...]