View
video and Need to Know interactive heatmap
Economics
UK rental: House rents fell in the three months to October as
properties that had failed to sell flooded the rental market, the Royal
Institution of Chartered Surveyors said. Twelve per cent more agents said
that rents had fallen, rather than risen, between August and October,
reversing the trend of the previous three months, when 31 per cent more
agents said that rents were rising.
Negative equity: Up to 40 per cent of landlords will be plunged into
negative equity by the middle of next year, according to a report from
Standard & Poor’s. It said that if house prices fell by 35 per cent, as
expected, between 220,000 and 440,000 buy-to-let loans would be in negative
equity.
Price falls: Homeowners are cutting the average asking price on their
property by as much as £6,500, according to Rightmove, the property search
website. The average asking price in England and Wales in the four weeks to
November 8 was £223,000, a 2.9 per cent decline on the previous month and
the biggest fall since records began in 2002.
Japan: Japan’s Fiscal Policy Minister said that “downward movements in
Japan are expected to continue” as the world’s second-largest economy
entered its first recession in seven years. The economy unexpectedly
contracted by 0.1 per cent in the three months to September, after shrinking
by 0.9 per cent in the second quarter of the year.
US factories: Industrial production rebounded in October, rising by 1.3
per cent, but this came as September’s fall in production was revised from
2.8 per cent to 3.7 per cent, making it the steepest decline since 1946.
Small businesses: The Government is to offer loans directly to
small businesses as banks continue to withhold credit from them. Companies
will be able to seek loans of up to £250,000 from Regional Development
Agencies, which ministers think will have an important role as Britain falls
into recession.
Banking
& finance
Citigroup: The American bank is to cut 50,000 jobs worldwide, in one of
the biggest employment culls in corporate history. Citi employs 11,000 in
the UK.
Canary Wharf: JPMorgan will relocate its European head office from the
City of London to Canary Wharf in East London, Britain’s second-largest
business district. JPMorgan has paid Canary Wharf Group £237 million
for a plot of land on the estate.
Barclays: The bank has privately agreed to put up its entire 17-member
board for re-election next April. Barclays declined to comment. Pirc, the
corporate governance consultancy, urged investors to vote down its
controversial £6 billion capital-raising.
SVG Capital: The private equity investor is in talks to scale back
payments to Permira, its parent, as concerns increase that the private
equity industry is facing a funding crisis.
UBS: Senior executives in UBS will forfeit previously earned bonuses if
they underperform under a radical new pay system devised by the Swiss bank.
Bank of Ireland: Shares dipped below the €1 mark in Dublin for the
first time, closing at 83 cents, reflecting investor concern about the
bank’s deteriorating asset quality. At their peak last year shares traded at
more than €18. Since then the bank’s value has been marked down by €16
billion.
Hypo Real Estate: The troubled German property financier wants to tap
the Government for more cash by the end of the year, beyond the €50 billion
it has secured already.
Macquarie Group: Australia’s biggest investment bank, an investor in
British infrastructure, reported a 43 per cent fall in its first-half
profits to A$604 million (£261 million) after taking writedowns because of
weaker markets.
Construction
& property
Tremón: The Spanish property group has filed for administration
after failing to meet debt payments. Tremón is the second Spanish property
group to seek administration this year.
Consumer
goods
Coca-Cola Amatil: The Australian soft drinks group, 30 per cent owned
by Coca-Cola, of the US, is expected to reject a A$8 billion (£3.5 billion)
bid from Lion Nathan, the drinks group backed by Kirin, the Japanese brewer.
A deal would create the largest beverage company by sales in Australasia.
Cranswick: The premium pork supplier and pet-food maker beat analyst
expectations with a 5 per cent rise in first-half profit. Pre-tax profit for
the period to the end of September was £18.5 million. It said that it
believed that inflationary cost pressures had peaked and that its premium
bacon products would drive further growth in 2009.
Engineering
US car industry: Democrat lawmakers are hoping to force through
legislation to allow American car manufacturers and car parts makers access
to the $700 billion (£465 billion) bank bailout fund, along with stringent
conditions. Democrats are sympathetic to the car companies, but want to
scrap bonuses and dividends.
MG Rover: The former bosses of MG Rover, who made an estimated £40
million from the business, have stalled the publication of a government
report into their conduct. The car company collapsed in 2005.
Bodycote: The engineering group said that performance in the second
half is expected to be modestly below management’s previous expectations. It
also said that it would return half of the £260 million that it raised from
the sale of its testing subsidiary to shareholders.
Health
Ranbaxy Laboratories: The Indian generic drug maker said that it
expected an early resolution to a US investigation into procedural
violations at two of its plants. The US Food and Drug Administration said in
September that it would block more than 30 of Ranbaxy’s drugs from entering
the United States because of violations at the Dewas and Paonta Sahib plants
in India.
Industrials
Ineos Group: A sudden collapse in demand for plastics has forced Ineos,
a leading chemical company, into talk with its bankers over the
renegotiation of the terms of billions of dollars in loans.
JSW Steel: India’s third-largest steelmaker has formed an equal joint
venture with Severfield-Rowen, the British structural steel company, for a
£30 million project.
Leisure
888 Holdings: The internet gaming operator reported a 23 per cent jump
in third-quarter net gaming revenues to $66 million (£43.9 million), but
said that poor economic conditions and the strong dollar had hit recent
trading.
InterContinental Hotels Group: The world’s biggest hotel company by
number of rooms is to launch Hotel Indigo, its lifestyle brand, in Asia
after signing a deal with Shanghai Huangpu River Banks Asset Management for
a 180-room development in Shanghai, China.
Coffee Republic: The coffee shop franchise reported a 0.6 per cent rise
in like-for-like sales in recent trading and said that it was issuing 2.6
million new shares at 30p each to allow it to pay off its debt under a
compromise deal with Barclays.
Avis Europe: The car hire company plans to cut 315 jobs, equivalent to
5 per cent of its workforce and close some rental locations. It said that
volumes were “noticeably” weaker in the final quarter of the year and gave
warning that it was now unlikely to better last year’s underlying profits.
Media
Independent News & Media: Zac Goldsmith, the multimillionaire and
Conservative Party candidate, came close to buying the struggling The
Independent newspaper in the summer after holding talks with executives of
Independent News & Media, the title’s owner.
ITV: Viewers will be able to watch re-runs of ITV’s shows on television
after it secured a deal with Vision TV, BT’s digital television service.
Until now, replays of ITV programmes have been available only on the
internet.
Natural
resources
Gem Diamonds: Shares in the diamond miner plunged by 38 per cent to
213½p after it said that it has had to stop some exploration activities in
the Democratic Republic of Congo and may suspend output at an Indonesian
mine. The average price per carat for a rough diamond from its mines has
fallen from about $2,500 (£1,670) to about $1,400.
BHP Billiton: The world’s third-biggest iron ore miner has had requests
from some customers to defer up to 5 per cent of this year’s production. It
is the latest big miner to feel the effects of declining global steel
production.
Uranium: Western Australia has lifted a ban on uranium mining, paving
the way for miners to step up exploration. Local elections in September led
to a reversal of the state’s ban on mining.
Retailing
Asos: The online fashion retailer has bucked the gloomy trend on the
high street with a sharp increase in profits for the first half of the year
and a forecast of “cautious optimism” for the months ahead. Asos reported
pre-tax profits up by 68 per cent at £4.1 million for the six months to
September 30.
H&M: The Swedish-owned fashion retailer’s sales figures for October
came in slightly ahead of expectations. Sales were 2 per cent down, compared
with the same period in 2007, for stores open for at least a full year. It
is the third consecutive monthly decline.
Target Corp: The discount retailer registered a near-24 per cent drop
in quarterly profits, its fifth consecutive fall in quarterly profits.
Target also temporarily suspended nearly all its share buybacks and cut
capital spending.
Carrefour: The French supermarket company is expected to announce the
departure of its chief executive this week. José Luis Duran will be replaced
by Lars Olofsson, a Nestlé executive, according to the Financial Times.
Support
services
Legal services: The number of commercial lawsuits filed in the High
Court reached the highest level for six years, with 64,046 cases in 2007.
Fiona Wilkinshaw, a partner in Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, the law firm,
said that an expected sharp upturn in claims arising from the credit crunch
had yet to emerge.
Technology
ARM Holdings: The Cambridge-based microchip designer will collaborate
with Adobe Systems, the software maker, to bring better web services to
ARM-powered devices, including mobile handsets from most of the world’s
biggest handset makers.
Telecoms
Easynet Global Services: The IT technology services provider owned by
BSkyB has bought the Hong Kong and Chinese businesses of Telindus, the IT
services unit owned by Belgacom.
Telkom: The South African telecoms company registered a 0.4 per cent
rise in earnings per share in the six months to the end of September, helped
by growth across Africa. It said that it was considering acquisitions.
Transport
Kingfisher: Vijay Mallya, the Indian entrepreneur, is preparing to sell
25 per cent of the airline to a foreign rival. He says that he has received
several expressions of interest in India’s second-largest private carrier.
Air France: Pilots went on strike for a fourth consecutive day in a
dispute over the airline’s retirement plans. Air France expected to run
between 65 and 70 per cent of its long-haul flights from Paris yesterday and
about half its medium-haul flights.
Utilities
Enea: Shares in Poland’s second-biggest utility made their debut on the
Warsaw bourse, completing the country’s largest listing this year. Enea
raised 2 billion zlotys (£225 million) from the IPO.
Japan Electric Power Exchange: Merrill Lynch has notified the wholesale
electricity exchange that it will withdraw its membership on January 16. It
became the first foreign member of the exchange in March 2007.
