October, 2009
UK’s Ladbrokes in £300m cash call
Ladbrokes is set to become the latest company in the UK leisure sector to tap shareholders for cash with the launch of a £300m rights issue on Thursday. The leading UK bookmaker was on Wednesday night finalising details of the cash call,
Aviva to set up parallel US listing
Aviva, the UK’s second biggest insurer, plans a parallel listing on the New York Stock Exchange, in the first new issue of American Depositary Receipts from a UK company in almost a decade. Andrew Moss,
Conoco to sell $10bn of assets
ConocoPhillips, the third-biggest US oil company, on Wednesday announced plans to sell $10bn worth of assets over the next two years and cut its 2010 capital spending by $1.5bn. It plans to use the proceeds to cut its debt,
Alcoa surprises with Q3 profits
Alcoa, the biggest US aluminium producer, surprised investors on Wednesday by reporting a Q3 return to profitability after three consecutive quarters of losses, thanks to rising metal prices and cost-cuts.
Thanachart eyes issue for SCIB deal
Thailand’s Thanachart Bank has proposed a rights issue to raise Bt40bn ($1.2bn) to fund the purchase of a 47.6% stake in Siam City Bank. Bangkok is selling the stake in SCIB it acquired 10 years ago in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.
Dotcom suit ends with anti-climax
A sweeping class-action lawsuit brought against some of Wall Street’s top investment banks in the wake of the dotcom bust ended in anti-climax on Tuesday, after a US judge approved a settlement that will cover only 1 cent for each dollar of losses investors suffered.
Versace quits Japan
Versace, the Italian fashion house, is pulling out of Japan after nearly 30 years amid a sweeping review of business strategy – highlighting the depth of the consumer slump in one of the world’s top luxury markets.
Investors cling to gold
Gold prices continued to surge on Wednesday, hitting a fresh record close to $1,050 a troy ounce as investors bet that trading momentum would push the precious metal still higher. Barclays Capital said gold prices,
Overnight markets:Up
Asian stocks rose for a third day, led by banks and mining companies, after Australian employers unexpectedly added workers last month and Alcoa – first in the Dow Jones Industrial Average to release Q3 results – reported better than expected earnings.
Poison Gasbag
Live by the media sword, die by the media sword, right?
Sallie Krawcheck may or may not have placed herself in the CNBC/New York Post spotlight this week in order to advance her case for being the next chief executive of Bank of American,
Ladbrokes – odds on for a cash call
Rumours had been circulating in the late London afternoon, but Neil Hume and other FT colleagues are now pretty sure that we can expect a £300m rights issue from Ladbrokes on Wednesday morning.
Apparently,
Introducing NattyMac
You’ve probably heard of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, those saved-by-the-US-government entities and linchpins of the US housing market. You may also be familiar with IndyMac, the mortgage lender which failed spectacularly – though not without warning - in July 2008.
Final public-to-private dash by Lloyds?
We will ignore, for the moment, the self-referential Peston-esque prose, and move instead directly to the news from Mark Kleinman at Sky:
I’ve just learned that Lloyds Banking Group, in which the taxpayer owns a 43pc stake,
Charts du jour, commodities edition
The thinkers over at Bespoke have produced some nifty charts showing ten major commodities, ranging from gold to oil to frozen concentrated orange juice.
According to Bespoke, while gold is all the range,
CDS report: French luxury goods firm PPR outperforms in Europe
Markit’s Gavan Nolan wrote this CDS report.
European credit markets widened today, curtailing the strong two-day rally. The Markit iTraxx Europe index was a notable underperformer compared to the stock market and other credit indices,
HSH Nordbank calls in the cops (updated)
British cops, that is, in the form of the City of London Police. From Reuters:
German ship financier HSH Nordbank said it suspects it was financially damaged by “murky business transactions” in its London office and has informed the relevant authorities about its suspicions.
A CEE stress snapshot
A quick overview of the situation facing CEE on Wednesday:
Latvia
- The government’s latest debt auction fell flat on Wednesday, with investors picking up only 2.04m of the 24m lats worth of debt on offer.
Banks not worried enough about commercial real estate, Fed says
The Wall Street Journal ran a good story on Wednesday about the Federal Reserve’s concerns that US banks have been slow to take losses on their commercial real-estate loans.
According to the WSJ, the Fed expressed its concerns in a presentation to banking regulators in September:
Oye, Baby Boomers: don’t retire, if you can possibly avoid it
Julia Coronado, senior US economist at BNP Paribas, this week issued the first in what promises to be an insightful series of notes on how the financial crisis has affected the baby boom generation.
First order of business:
Today I shall short Adecco, Danone, Deutsche Telekom, Diageo…
M&A is back (exclamation point!), thanks to the Kradbury affair, and with it lists of possible acquisition targets to buy.
RBS have made their own contribution to M&A speculation on Wednesday morning with a compendium of six potential acquirers to short.
Why buy-and-hold can be a disaster in commodities
There’s a reason why so many investors get their fingers burned playing with commodities. Every commodity is different, every commodity has unique trading peculiarities and almost every commodity favours investors who can,
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville Wednesday morning,
- Fitch calls false dawn in UK housing.
- Gold is off the charts, and heading to $1500.
- Why Versace ditched Japan.
- Citi says you are now leaving the Twilight Zone.
Fitch: False dawn for the UK housing market
One for the (housing market) bears, this.
Fresh from ratings agency Fitch, with our highlights:
Fitch Ratings-London-07 October 2009: Fitch Ratings says today that it expects the recent gains in the main UK house price indices to be a temporary respite.
Markets live transcript 7 Oct 2009
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:12 on 7 Oct 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Bryce Elder (BE)
NH:
Hola
NH:
It’s 11.03am
Versace ditches Japan’s designer-handbag index
Forget GDP growth, industrial output, trade balances and the Tankan survey of business sentiment.
The most telling indicator of Japan’s economic mood came in this story out on Bloomberg on Wednesday:
You are now leaving the Twilight Zone
So say the strategy team at Citigroup in a hefty report published on Wednesday morning, which predicts global equities will make decent, if unspectacular gains, over the next couple of years.
Now, in case you are wondering what the Twilight Zone is,