Australia dilutes its mining tax March 24, 2011 AUSTRALIA’S booming mining companies including BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have won a major concession over a plan to tax their profits, potentially saving them hundreds of millions of dollars and helping cool industry opposition to the tax. Australian treasurer Wayne Swan said yesterday the national government would repay current royalties that the miners pay [...]
Vedanta extends Cairn offer April 7, 2011 VEDANTA pushed on with its offer to take over 20 per cent of Cairn India yesterday, despite the Indian government’s decision on Wednesday to further scrutinise the deal. Vedanta and Cairn have extended the offer period by a month to 20 May to try and get the deal out of the doldrums, after more than [...]
THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED March 28, 2011 A DRAMATIC collapse of CD sales and online piracy dragged global recorded music sales down by $1.5bn (£940m) last year – more than the total annual revenue of the UK music industry. Income from recorded music slumped 8.4 per cent to $15.9bn. CD sales dragged the total down with a drop of 14 per cent [...]
EasyJet in VisitBritain deal March 28, 2011 BUDGET airline easyJet has launched an £18m licensing deal with VisitBritain to promote tourism into the UK over the Royal Wedding, the 2012 London Olympics and beyond. The four-year deal will see the government pay the airline £9m to bring in foreign passengers to the UK. EasyJet will provide the rest of the funding in [...]
India hopes Cairn deal will proceed February 6, 2011 INDIA’S oil secretary said yesterday he was hopeful of finding a “positive solution” to Cairn India’s plans to sell a controlling stake in its Indian unit to Vedanta Resources. Oil secretary S. Sunderashan’s remarks are the strongest sign yet that the proposed deal, valued at up to $9.6bn (£5.9bn), could go through by 15 April, [...]
India hopes Cairn deal will proceed February 6, 2011 INDIA’S oil secretary said yesterday he was hopeful of finding a “positive solution” to Cairn India’s plans to sell a controlling stake in its Indian unit to Vedanta Resources. Oil secretary S. Sunderashan’s remarks are the strongest sign yet that the proposed deal, valued at up to $9.6bn (£5.9bn), could go through by 15 April, [...]
CHARLIE BICK IS COMEBACK KING AS X FACTOR DEFEAT OPENS DOORS April 26, 2011 THEY thought it was all over for the singing career of Charlie Bick, the son of Square1 Consulting’s chairman David Bick, who was voted off the Chilean version of the X Factor after just two live performances. Not for long however, as the next morning Charlie Bick – who this column first reported on on [...]
Microsoft to pay $1bn for Nokia tie-up March 8, 2011 MICROSOFT will pay Nokia a staggering $1bn (£620m) upfront to develop handsets designed to run its Windows Phone 7 (WP7) operating system, it is understood. Nokia will reportedly pay Microsoft a royalty fee for each WP7 licence it uses, although the exact figure has not been announced. Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft [...]
A right Royal WEDDING April 20, 2011 We at City A.M. can be a cynical bunch. We confess there have been moments in the run-up to the royal wedding on 29 April that have made us roll our eyes, such as T Mobile’s yawnsome wedding spoof video and the release of the awful-looking William & Kate: The Movie. Others, though, have raised [...]
New devices give shot in ARM February 16, 2011 UK CHIP maker ARM was one of the big winners from this year’s Mobile World Congress, with its royalties set to rocket from the uptake of its processors powering many of the new devices on show. It receives up to two per cent of the selling price for its Cortex designs, against nearer one per [...]