February, 2009
British Land in £740m rights issue
British Land has tapped shareholders for £740m in a fully underwritten rights issue. The UK property group announced the issue alongside a £1.64bn writedown in the third quarter following a 13% reduction in its property portfolio valuation.
Brokers may join LCH.Clearnet bid
Tullett-Prebon, GFI Group and Tradition, three of the world’s largest interdealer brokers, have approached a consortium considering an offer for LCH.Clearnet, Europe’s largest independent clearing house,
Profits at Schroders more than halve
Annual profits at Schroders more than halved as the fund manager suffered more than £160m of exceptional charges amid financial markets turmoil. Funds under management fell to £110.2bn in the year to Dec 31 from 139.1bn the previous year.
GLG saved by SocGen deal
GLG Partners, the London hedge fund, avoided breaching covenants on its $570m debt by cutting a deal with Société Générale, the French bank, figures showed Thursday. GLG agreed to buy SocGen Asset Management’s UK arm in December and immediately started managing $3bn of its assets,
Fraud concerns for GFX investors
Large numbers of small UK investors could be hit by a suspected multi-million pound fraud involving a City trader who has been arrested by financial investigators. Police said Thursday they had launched a probe into Bromley-based GFX Capital Markets,
Australia’s Senate passes stimulus
Australia’s Senate on Friday passed a A$42bn ($27.4bn) economic stimulus package it had blocked the day before, in an unexpected second vote after frantic overnight negotiations won a vital extra vote allowing the Labor government to override opposition from conservative parties.
Morgan Stanley suspends top official
Morgan Stanley has suspended its global head of real estate investing after revealing that actions by an employee believed to be the former China property head “appear to have violated” the US foreign corrupt practices act,
Obama’s fourth pick withdraws
President Barack Obama suffered the fourth high-profile withdrawal of a key nominee on Thursday when Judd Gregg, a Republican senator for New Hampshire, stepped aside as commerce secretary candidate, citing “irresolvable” policy conflicts.
LSE calls in Rolet to replace Furse
The London Stock Exchange will on Friday signal a new era in its 208-year history by selecting Xavier Rolet, 49, a veteran of trading operations at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers as its new chief executive.
Overnight markets: Optimism?
Asian stocks rose on Friday for the first time in five days, led by banks and electronics companies, on optimism governments will widen efforts to revive global growth. Futures on the S&P500 Index were little changed after the index staged a late rally Thursday,
That’s nice Timmy, but we’ve got a few suggestions…
Apparently, the Goldmanati are concerned.
For starters, the new Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, never worked at The Firm. For a second, he’s not exactly got the confidence of the markets at the moment.
“Dear clients of GFX… please accept this apology for the way this message is being conveyed”
So begins a very web 2.0 admission of involvement of what might prove to be very large financial fraud.
Terry Freeman, a 60 year-old foreign exchange trader, was arrested from his home in Essex by the City of London Police Economic Crime Department on Monday.
The 2009/10 FSA business plan
…is out and here are the highlights.
The budget will be £415m, that’s a 22.6 per cent, or £76.6m, increase on 08/09. Here’s how the money will be spent.
As you can see from the above table,
Merger Arb disasters
The below chart taken from this paper (HT Alea):
Related links:
Marking to Markowitz – FT Alphaville
Through an efficient market glass, darkly – FT Alphaville
[The Stanford Series] As Stanford allegations fly, the SEC investigates…
He’s been hailed as the saviour of West Indies cricket and was promising to do the same for the English game. But for Sir Allen Stanford, knighted by the Antiguan authorities rather than the Queen, things are looking decidedly sticky – certainly in a financial sense.On Wednesday a spokesman for Stanford’s sprawling financial empire confirmed to Reuters that three US regulatory bodies – the SEC,
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville this morning,
- Rio Tinto and its new masters.
- Rio spreads no joy Down Under.
- A “pioneering strategic partnership”?
- Australia’s absent stimulus plan.
- Recapitalising the Irish banks.
CDS report: Credit markets in sombre mood, Diageo warns on profits
Weaker performances in equity markets weighed on European credit Thursday morning, traders said. Trading activity was muted, with many investors wary ahead of the release of retail sales data in the US this afternoon,
US Treasuries, not treasured by Fed, or Gross
(Sorry)
Having raised the possibility of buying longer-term Treasuries in November, and mentioning the prospect in his past two policy statements, the idea was markedly absent from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s Tuesday testimony.
Markets live transcript 12 Feb 2009
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:06 on 12 Feb 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Paul Murphy, FT (PM) NH:Morning all PM:hi there
Pandit: marked to market
And the result is…
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) — Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit said he will take a salary of $1 and no bonus until the bank, which has accepted $45 billion in government bailout money,
Recapitalising the Irish banks
Allied Irish Banks market cap – €828m
Bank of Ireland market cap – €572m
Irish government’s capital injection – €3.5bn for each bank
Despite the discrepancy, the Irish government said today that,
Rio spreads no joy Down Under
It’s official: Chinese state-owned aluminium group Chinalco on Thursday sealed the biggest overseas investment by a Chinese company, agreeing to invest $19.5bn in miner Rio Tinto in a deal that will secure resource supplies for China and help cut Rio’s debts.
A pioneering strategic partnership?
Underwhelmed.
That’s probably the best way of summing up the market’s initial reaction to Rio Tinto’s $19bn deal Pioneering Strategic Partnership with Chinalco, China’s biggest aluminium maker.
Shares in Rio are 24p lower at £19.43 in early trading on Thursday.
A lack of stimulation, down under
While there were some tense moments in the US congressional brawl over Barack Obama’s mega-stimulus package, nobody ever expected it to be rejected outright. It was always going to scrape through – in some form or another.
Rio Tinto and its new masters
And in case you missed the news,
From FT.com
Rio Tinto, the troubled mining group, on Thursday unveiled controversial plans to receive a $19.5bn cash injection from Chinalco and reported a 50 per cent fall in full-year profit after taking a one-off charge for writing down the value of its aluminium assets.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- Live-blogging the bankers’ showdown on Capitol Hill.
- Politicians bite the hands that feed them.
- Charlie Gasparino has some more questions for the bankers.
-‘Big Paulie’ Volcker’s advice to Timmy Geithner.
Pink picks
Comment, analysis and other offerings from Thursday’s FT,
Comment: Put the puritans in charge of the punchbowl
Arvind Subramanian and John Williamson , senior fellos at the Peterson Institute for International Economics,
Snap news
The latest on Thursday,
- British Land announces third-quarter results and £740m rights issue — statement.
- Catlin Group announces final results and £200m rights issue — statement.
- Bank of Ireland issues a trading statement and gets government go-ahead for recapitalisation terms — statement.
BHP eyes China’s Rio bail-out
Troubled mining group Rio Tinto is set to unveil Thursday a $19.5bn cash injection from Chinese state-owned Chinalco in a deal that has already angered some of Rio’s top shareholders, reports the FT.