FT Reporters
The unusual case of Green Bay Packers shares
FT.com reporter Jason Abbruzzese submits this guest post for FT Alphaville.
The NFL’s Green Bay Packers, currently atop the National Football Conference, on Tuesday provided the fifth stock offering in their storied history.
A $4.2bn question for Sino-Forest Corporation
By Stacy-Marie Ishmael, FT Tilt and John McDermott, FT Alphaville
(For the most recent version of this post, and subsequent updates see FT Tilt)
Muddy Waters Research, a specialist in Chinese companies,
KNOC explores bid for Dana
By Miles Johnson and Neil Hume
KNOC, South Korea’s national oil company, is exploring a £1.5bn offer for the FTSE 250 oil explorer Dana Petroleum as part of a foreign acquisition spree planned over the next two years.
Lex: Porsche
The dismissal of Wendelin Wiedeking may clear the way for Ferdinand Piëch to leave his family an extraordinary legacy.
Porsche SE could inject the unlisted distributor into Porsche AG, which VW would then buy.
Lex: Markets’ first half
The second quarter may well have marked the bottom. But it could also descend into infamy as the most deceptive three months in economic memory. Certainly all the talk of a second Great Depression has vanished.
Lex: Madoff
A fraud that was off the charts in the event yielded a sentence to match.
Just how many billions are really at stake, however, made little difference to this outcome. The top bracket for losses under federal sentencing guidelines is “more than $400m”
Russia invades the Hungarian energy sector
By Haig Simonian in Zurich
A Russian oil company loyal to the Kremlin on Monday bought Austrian energy group OMV’s stake in MOL, the Hungarian energy group, for twice its market value.
The deal involving Surgutneftegas is likely to sound alarm bells in Hungary,
US refuses fresh funding for GM, Chrysler
By Tom Braithwaite in Washington
The Obama administration refused on Sunday night to give fresh bailout money to General Motors and Chrysler, telling the carmakers to come up with new plans or risk insolvency.
Hays confident despite slowing demand
Hays on Thursday reiterated its confidence in meeting its full-year forecasts in spite of weakening demand from its UK-based banking and housebuilding clients.
Net fee income at the recruitment company grew 16 per cent on a like-for-like basis in the three months to June 30,
Sports Direct falls 51% in ‘hardest year’
Sports Direct said on Thursday that trading in its first year as a listed company had been the hardest it had ever faced, as it reported a 51 per cent drop in underlying pre-tax profits.
The sports retailer,
Experian sees no short-term recovery
Experian on Thursday said it did not expect any short-term recovery in the US and UK financial services market as it reported a small increase in underlying revenues.
Total revenues in the three months to the end of June,
Small cap grief – Altium loses Levin
Garry Levin is understood to have departed – rather abruptly – from the MD’s seat at Altium Securities, the British small cap broker. FT Alphaville understands he has taken the rap for the failed flotation of Gaucho,
Banks prop up money market funds
Banks and mutual fund managers are being forced to prop up their money market funds to prevent ratings agencies from downgrading the funds, as the credit crisis spreads further through the financial system,
One hitch in that Qatar-Dubai stake swap
There is much noise being generated about a potential deal between the Gulf emirates of Qatar and Dubai that would see Qatar swap its 10 per cent stake in OMX for part of Dubai’s 28 per cent stake in the LSE.
Lombard: Sir Fred presses on
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Or in this case, who says it. It may be a statement of the blindingly obvious that there is a “very big chance” that the Royal Bank of Scotland-led consortium will win the bid battle for ABN Amro,
Lex & Pretzlik: Northern Rock deserved to wreck
Which kidder asked about share buybacks on the Northern Rock analyst call this morning, wonders Lex? After trudging cap in hand to see the Bank, the chance of Northern Rock remaining independent are slim.
Tett: Squeeze which defies regulatory boundaries
Welcome to one of the most pernicious problems now haunting markets, says the FT’s Gillian Tett. The utter inadequacy of modern regulatory structures to cope with the shape of 21st-century finance.
Who – if anybody – is able to step in to calm the markets down effectively? The interbank credit crunch spans the jurisdictions of the Bank of England,
An ABC on the CP stand-off
On a conference call on Tuesday, investors and financiers will attempt to thrash out what is behind the paralysis in the asset-backed commercial paper market, and what is needed to restore confidence among investors,
Notice from Basis Capital: “potential claims against financiers”
DISCLOSURE NOTICE
BASIS YIELD ALPHA FUND
The Basis Yield Alpha Fund (“Fund”) indirectly invests most of its assets into the Basis Yield Alpha Fund (Master) (“Master Fund”). The Master Fund has suffered
The latest letter from Basis Capital
Dear Investors
The Basis Yield Alpha Fund and its Investment Advisor, Basis Capital Funds Management Limited, would like to thank you all for your patience and support over the last few weeks as we have worked around the clock in our efforts to minimise the impact on the Fund of recent events.
Lex: private banking and the cycle
From the Lex column:
Much like their dining suites and liveried footmen, private banks have always been thought to produce a better class of earnings. Since customers — from the merely comfortably off to the ultra high net worth individual — are largely insulated from market swings,
Not very friendly – interlopers hover around insurance tie-up
F&C, Friends Provident’s majority-owned asset management business, said it would acquire Resolution’s fund management arm if the £8.4bn merger of Friends and Resolution goes ahead.
It said the acquisition would also depend on an appropriate price being agreed,
FTSE falls on credit market woes
London equities fell on Monday tracking steep losses on Wall Street in the wake of comments from Bear Stearns saying credit markets are in their worst condition in two decades.
The FTSE 100 opened 1 per cent lower at 6,162.9 with banks,
People: Murdoch is the buzz at Reuters’ summer party
Talk among media heavies at the Reuters summer party hosted by CEO Tom Glocer at the British Museum wasn’t about the group’s merger with Thomson but Rupert Murdoch’s conquering of Dow Jones. Or Ruby (Rupert/News) and Diamond (Dow Jones) as they were codenamed in SEC documents filed on Thursday,
Lex: Nervous debt markets
From the Lex column:
The junk credit markets have in effect closed for business over the summer, with concerns about subprime exposure and the financing of leveraged buy-outs at the forefront. But does any of this actually matter for large quoted companies? The top 1,150 global quoted companies have,
An eye popping merger? — tune in to Markets Live at 11am
We are having to cross our proverbials, here on FT Alphaville. A transatlantic bid, valued in the scores of billions, appears to be under preparation — and we think we have the details.
All will be revealed on Markets Live,
iShares – the final leg
We are in the final furlong of the iShares trading game, where players have been busy shuffling £10m of virtual money between various exchange traded funds.
And extraordinarily successful they have been! With just three trading days to go before the final reckoning,
Markets Live at 11am
Some big features up for discussion on Tuesday’s edition of Markets Live, FT Alphaville’s daily markets chat.
Top of the list — Unilever, which surged more than 4 per cent during early trade in London,
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