Corporate tax cut – but not for the banks March 23, 2011 BUSINESSES welcomed George Osborne’s decision to go further and faster in lowering corporation tax in yesterday’s Budget. But banks didn’t get the cut, with the Treasury increasing its bank levy for the second time in as many months in order to offset the gain they would have received from the corporate tax measure. Osborne announced [...]
Upbeat engineers and banks drive FTSE 100 to 1.2pc gain March 21, 2011 MINERS, banks and engineers drove gains in Britain’s top share index by the close yesterday as hope grew that the nuclear crisis in Japan is easing, while heavyweight Vodafone was boosted by M&A activity. The FTSE 100 closed up 67.96 points, or 1.2 per cent, at 5,786.09, its third straight session of gains. The index [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS March 21, 2011 COMPUTACENTER JP Morgan Cazenove rates the IT infrastructure provider “overweight” and has raised its target price from 345p to 480p following results last week. The broker has raised its revenue forecast by 13 per cent for 2011 to £2.97bn for the year, giving a pre-tax profit of £77m. It expects a steady growth trajectory for [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS March 21, 2011 COMPUTACENTER JP Morgan Cazenove rates the IT infrastructure provider “overweight” and has raised its target price from 345p to 480p following results last week. The broker has raised its revenue forecast by 13 per cent for 2011 to £2.97bn for the year, giving a pre-tax profit of £77m. It expects a steady growth trajectory for [...]
FTSE rebounds as investor confidence returns March 21, 2011 Stocks regained considerable ground today, consolidating their gains this afternoon, as reassuring action in Japan and Libya gave investors confidence. The morning’s announcement of telecoms giant AT&T’s $39bn (£24bn) takeover of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA also lifted both the UK and US markets. The FTSE 100 closed up 1.2 per cent at 5,786.09. “Equity markets [...]
Owners of British technology company Edwards plot stock market offering March 14, 2011 BRITISH vacuum technology producer Edwards Group is plotting a London listing to raise at least £375m. The firm provides chipmakers with vacuum technology needed to make microprocessors, used in products such as Apple’s iPad. Its private equity backers own a combined 90 per cent stake of the firm, which was valued at £1.5bn last year. [...]
Weak demand for commodity and bank shares drag on FTSE March 9, 2011 WEAK commodity and bank stocks dragged Britain’s leading shares index lower yesterday as oil prices climbed after intensified fighting in Libya. At the close, the FTSE 100 was down 37.46 points, or 0.6 per cent, at 5,937.30, having hit a low for the week at 5,922.66 in the afternoon before recovering. “Only a dyed-in-the-wool optimist [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS March 7, 2011 Nomura Holdings The Asian investment bank has made a number of changes to its management team. David Benson, Nomura’s former chief risk officer, will become vice chairman of Nomura Holdings. Wholesale president and COO Jesse Bhattal (pictured) will become deputy president of Nomura Holdings and CEO of the Wholesale division, and Yasuo Kashiwagi, currently senior [...]
Shareholders query London base for HSBC March 6, 2011 HSBC shareholders are becoming increasingly restless over the bank’s domicile, with the UK bank levy a particular bugbear due to the proportion of its incomes earned abroad. The bank has said that the levy will cost it $600m (£369m) this year, between the £315m and £390m forecasts for RBS and Barclays respectively, despite HSBC deriving [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS March 3, 2011 ITV UBS rates the media company “buy” with a 12-month target price of 115p. The broker says that the firm’s strong results on Wednesday benefited from cost-cutting and a strong advertising environment, and forecasts five per cent growth in the second half of 2011. UBS adds that while the firm is focused on organic investment, [...]