LONDON 2012 IMAGE OF THE WEEK May 17, 2012 IN a ceremony in Athens yesterday, the Olympic flame was handed over to a delegation led by Princess Anne. Accompanied by David Beckham, it will travel to the UK on a specially painted golden British Airways plane. Nicknamed the Firefly, the plane will land in Cornwall, where the Torch will begin its 70 day journey [...]
IAG stocks nosedive as major Spanish investor looks to sell May 28, 2012 SHARES in British Airways parent company International Airlines Group nosedived 2.7 per cent yesterday on news its largest shareholder Bankia would need to dispose of assets to raise cash. The troubled Spanish bank has a 12 per cent stake in IAG following the bailout of Caja Madrid, which was a major stakeholder in Iberia before [...]
BA fined £58m over price fixing case April 19, 2012 Britain’s Office of Fair Trading said it had fined British Airways £58.5m for price fixing in relation to fuel surcharges, imposing a penalty that is less than half that agreed in August 2007. The case against British Airways, which colluded with rival Virgin Atlantic in pricing surcharges on long-haul flights, has been a long and [...]
BEST of the BROKERS May 29, 2012 JOHNSON MATTHEY Credit Suisse rates the chemicals company “neutral” and has raised its target price by 50p to £24 to reflect its increased earnings per share forecasts for 2013-15. The broker now expects to see 19 per cent year-on-year growth in profit before tax. However, the broker prefers Belgian rival Umicore as its long-term materials [...]
LONDON 2012 IMAGE OF THE WEEK May 3, 2012 LONDON 2012 is joining up with British Airways to create Park Live, an outdoor venue set in the newly-created 250 acres of Olympic parklands. A giant double-sided screen, sitting in the River Lea, will broadcast live Olympic coverage for those without tickets for sporting events. Other entertainment will include visits from athletes. Between now and [...]
OLYMPIC MEDIA BUZZ LONDON 2012 PARTNERS April 9, 2012 IN ASSOCIATION with Repskan.com, City A.M. is measuring the relative Olympic media buzz around the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games partners, week by week. The leaderboard, right, reflects their ranking over the past week, in this case from Wednesday 28 March to Wednesday 4 April. British Airways has had a bumper Olympic news week, [...]
Why rivals are banking on Diamond’s downfall July 2, 2012 Whenever a banking scandal breaks in the City, be it rogue trade allegations at UBS, a massive trading loss at JP Morgan or the current Libor interest rates scandal, the first concern is for the reputation of the industry as a whole. But, investment bankers being possibly the most competitive bunch on the universe, the [...]
Airline traffic growth is knocked off course by Eurozone worries June 7, 2012 IAG, the parent firm of British Airways and Iberia, has been hit by Spain’s economic woes in the last month, undermining the strength in its long-haul London routes. IAG said yesterday that its traffic, measured in revenue passenger kilometres, rose 6.6 per cent last month versus May 2011, while passenger load factor – a measure [...]
Sir Richard set to appeal BMI takeover deal April 15, 2012 VIRGIN Atlantic president Sir Richard Branson yesterday vowed to appeal to Europe over British Airways owner IAG’s takeover of smaller carrier BMI. The £172m deal was given clearance by the European Commission at the end of March, but Sir Richard has criticised the regulators for their swift decision, in the latest attack on his rival’s [...]
BEST of the BROKERS May 7, 2012 PRUDENTIAL JP Morgan Cazenove has maintained its “underweight” rating on Prudential and a target price of 698p ahead of the firm’s first quarter sales announcement tomorrow. The broker predicts its sales to be weak in the US but remaining strong in Asia. INTERNATIONAL AIRLINES GROUP Nomura has maintained its “buy” stance on the British Airways [...]