Balfour Beatty rejects Carillion’s offer as profit dives August 11, 2014 Balfour Beatty yesterday posted a 53 per cent slump in underlying half-year profit to £22m, putting the infrastructure firm under pressure to prove that it can go it alone after rejecting a second takeover bid from rival Carillion. The flailing FTSE 250 company, which has issued four profit warnings in two years and is currently [...]
EDF Energy shuts down four UK nuclear reactors after boiler defect August 11, 2014 Energy giant Centrica, which owns a 20 per cent stake in EDF Energy’s nuclear operations, yesterday warned that its earnings per share would be lower this year after a boiler defect caused its French peer to shut down four of its ageing reactors in the UK. EDF said it found an “unexpected” defect on a [...]
Mitie forecasts good full-year revenue growth after securing £250m Vodafone deal August 11, 2014 Outsourcing firm Mitie yesterday said it expects good full-year revenue growth, after securing a string of high-profile contracts including a £250m deal with telecoms giant Vodafone. The FTSE 250-quoted company had already secured 90 per cent of budgeted revenues for this financial year by 30 June, with the start dates of a number of contracts [...]
Cluff awarded new licences August 11, 2014 CLUFF Natural Resources, the Aim-quoted energy company, today said it has been awarded three new underground coal gasification (UCG) licences in the north of England. The company already has five licences for UCG – the process of drilling down into coal and then igniting it to produce gas. “[UCG] will further diversify our primary energy [...]
Caledonia in results error August 11, 2014 CALEDONIA Mining, the South African gold producer, was yesterday forced to restate its first-quarter results after an accounting error led it to report profits over $1m (£600,000) higher than they truly are. The company, which is listed on London’s Aim, said “a misallocation of non-cash foreign exchange gain on the translation of certain bank balances [...]
Ofgem: Energy market probe will not be whitewashed August 10, 2014 Questions raised over regulator’s influence in energy probe. Energy watchdog Ofgem has been forced to defend itself after five former regulators warned it may unfairly influence an independent investigation into the sector. Well-known industry figures including Stephen Littlechild and Sir Callum McCarthy have written a letter to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which recently [...]
Carillion and Balfour revive merger talks August 10, 2014 CARILLION and Balfour Beatty have resumed talks over a possible £3bn merger, which would create one of the UK’s largest construction firms. Negotiations broke down at the end of last month due to a dispute over Balfour’s planned sale of Parsons Brinckerhoff, a US engineering design business it bought in 2009. Carillion said it would [...]
Former BG boss Chris Finlayson joins US firm InterOil August 10, 2014 Former BG Group chief executive Chris Finlayson has been hired as the chairman of InterOil, the New York-based oil and gas firm said yesterday. Oil industry veteran Finlayson stepped down from FTSE 100-listed BG Group in April after little more than a year in the role, in the wake of missed production targets, profit warnings [...]
Lansdowne takes a stake in luxury online retailer Achica August 10, 2014 Lansdowne Partners, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, has bought a stake in online luxury lifestyle store Achica. Lansdowne’s investment was disclosed in documents filed at Companies House, which also said that the company is considering an initial public offering at some point in the future. Achica’s chief executive Steve Robinson, who previously headed [...]
Kurdistan oil firms crash as Iraqi militants edge closer August 8, 2014 SHARES in Kurdistan-focused energy explorers plunged yesterday as Sunni Muslim jihadi group Isis edged closer to the autonomous region’s oil reserves. London-listed Gulf Keystone Petroleum and Genel Energy closed 11.4 per cent and 10.1 per cent lower respectively, after it emerged that Isis had seized at least three more towns near Kurdistan. Both companies have [...]
