| |
|
Business News
Tempus: Asos ... Whitbread ... Stagecoach
2008-04-29 05:25 - Asos: Well dressed
Job cuts at Meriwether hedge fund
2008-04-29 05:25 - Troubled hedge fund JWM Partners, founded by John Meriwether has made more
than 10 people redundant.
Food crisis — but it’s no surprise
2008-04-28 06:01 - What will we promise the world's hungry this time? When I was a girl, my father, King Hussein of Jordan, related a story about the last global food crisis and a famous promise made to the world's hungry by Henry Kissinger, who was then US Secretary of State.
Tempus: SCi ... WPP ... F&C
2008-04-28 06:01 - SCi: Game on
Banks pull the plug on buy-to-let landlords
2008-04-28 06:01 - The era of the amateur landlord has all but ended, with banks effectively
refusing to lend to new entrants to the buy-to-let market.
EU may declare Bank’s £50bn money market rescue ’Out’
2008-04-28 06:01 - The centrepiece of the Government’s plan to unclog Britain’s money markets
could be disrupted by European regulators because it falls foul of state-aid
rules, competition lawyers said yesterday.
The Bank of England’s scheme to free up Britain’s home loan market by
injecting £50 billion into the banking sector risks contravening the rules
because it gives unfair advantage to British banks over rivals, experts say.
Anthony Woolich, head of competition for LG, the business law firm in London,
said: “It seems to me that this is prima facie state aid because this scheme
gives banks operating in the UK an advantage over other European banks
operating outside the UK.”
Mervyn King, the Bank’s Governor, unveiled the bonds-for-mortgages plan this
week to try to encourage banks to resume lending to each other. Alistair
Darling, the Chancellor, said it was hoped that the move would revive the
mortgage market. However, last night lawyers gave warning that because it
was primarily British banks that stood to gain from the rescue package, and
because of the duration of the scheme, the plan was sure to raise eyebrows
in Brussels.
The Treasury has denied that the scheme contravenes state-aid rules because
the funding is available to all financial institutions that have a franchise
in the UK, and not just British banks.
Yet lawyers argued that it was clear that the plan was designed to help to
address the growing crisis in Britain’s housing markets. They also pointed
out that it was the heads of Britain’s biggest banks who met Gordon Brown
and Mr King before the announcement of the £50 billion plan.
If the European Commission were to find that the package breaches its rules,
it could order that the loans be paid back more quickly than expected, and
at penal rates of interest.
The six biggest British banks have all undertaken to use the Bank facility.
HBOS yesterday completed the creation of securities backed by £9 billion of
home loans - which would qualify for the swap arrangement.
Another leading competition lawyer, who declined to be named, said: “You can
argue that it’s a general attempt to improve the system in general and
everyone can participate, but in reality it’s a measure aimed at helping the
British banking sector.”
The Commission said it was staying in constant contact with the Government as
the Bank rescue plan comes into effect. One Brussels source last night said:
“Even if the Commission does not think that the measures amount to state
aid, it will want all the details to make absolutely certain.”
Motorists urged to stay calm amid strikes at Grangemouth oil refinery
2008-04-28 06:01 - A strike at Britain’s third largest oil refinery could cost the economy up to
£250 million, crippling infrastructure and prompting fears of fuel shortages
across the country.
English wine chases the Olympic dream
2008-04-28 06:01 - Picture the scene for a moment: London, 2012, the Olympic stadium and glory
for a British athlete on sport’s greatest stage. “Break open the bubbly,”
somebody shouts, and the new champion, medal hanging proudly around the
neck, is doused in a shower of . . . Kent’s finest.
It is a prospect that has persuaded a British producer to set out on the long
road to producing a sparkling wine to rival champagne, the sporting
champion’s toast of choice, for the Games.
Next month the English Wines Group, the Plus Markets-listed company behind the
Chapel Down brand, will start to plant 72 acres of a site near Maidstone
with chardonnay and pinot noir vines with a view to producing the first
sparkling wine in time for London 2012.
The site is part of a further 116 acres in the North Downs that the Kent-based
company, which numbers the property entrepreneurs Nigel Wray and Richard
Balfour-Lynn among its shareholders, has bought to cope with the growing
demand for English wines.
Frazer Thompson, chief executive, said that the land was ideal for growing
high-quality sparkling wine similar to those produced only 250 miles away in
Champagne. He said that the company would be planting “exactly the same
plants and root stock used in Champagne”.
SCi Entertainment to raise a £60m rescue
2008-04-28 06:01 - Phil Rogers, the chief executive of SCi Entertainment, the beleaguered
computer games maker, has promised to restore the company to profit after he
announced plans to raise £60 million in a rescue from a sceptical City.
All-powerful euro leaves holidaymakers looking elsewhere
2008-04-28 06:01 - The fall of the pound against the euro has prompted thousands of Britons to
rethink their holiday plans.
|
|
i8news.com
|
|
