Kate Mackenzie
Moss to step down as Aviva CEO
Whoah.
8 May 2012
Aviva announces Andrew Moss to step down as CEO
John McFarlane to assume executive duties with immediate effect
Aviva plc announces that Andrew Moss, Chief Executive Officer,
The 6am Cut London
Spain is planning a state bail-out of Bankia, the country’s third biggest bank by assets, in a move likely to involve the injection of billions of euros of public money into the troubled lender, the FT reports. Soon after the news broke,
The 6am Cut London – election edition*
Francois Hollande claimed victory in France and Greece’s two biggest parties were left without a clear majority in election results seen as a challenge to austerity policies, says Bloomberg.
Greece may face another election within months even if New Democracy and Pasok do scrape together a majority coalition,
The 6am Cut London
Facebook set a price range of $28 to $35 per share for its IPO. Using the high end of the range, Facebook could raise could raise up to $13.6bn in the offering, up from the $10bn it indicated earlier in the year, reports the FT.
The leading Korean export indicator
If you are fed up with trying to interpret China’s PMIs as a global indicators, try this:
As you can see, the US is going some way towards making up the shortfall left by plummeting growth in exports to Europe.
The 6am Cut London
The BoE should have “shouted from the rooftops” about risks before the financial crisis, Bank governor Mervyn King said in a speech on Wednesday night. (Financial Times)(Bloomberg)
EU bank rules that would “make him look like an idiot”
Marginal oil production costs are heading towards $100/barrel
Bernstein’s energy analysts have looked at the upstream costs for the 50 biggest listed oil producers and found that — surprise, surprise — “the era of cheap oil is over”:
Tracking data from the 50 largest listed oil and gas producing companies globally (ex FSU) indicates that cash,
Why China’s commodities demand is different
A lot of optimistic projections for China’s commodities demand look something like this:
The premise is fairly straightfoward: you take the country’s current level of GDP per capita, and compare its steel (or whatever) consumption per capita to what other nations’ consumption levels were at that point,
The 6am Cut London
A UK parliamentary committee has declared Rupert Murdoch “not fit” to lead an international media company, in a damning report that criticised News Corp’s handling of the phone-hacking scandal,
The 6am Cut London
China’s official PMI figures for April came in at 53.3, compared to 53.1 in March and a median forecast of 53.6 from economists surveyed by Bloomberg. It was the highest number in a year, and the fifth straight month of expansion,
‘It still has real value’
Thankyou, Bloomberg reporter, for picking up the phone to bring us this:
China Forestry Holdings Co. (930), the logging company that last week said its only able to account for 1 percent of its historical sales,
This Australian mining magnate wants to build Titanic II
This is Clive Palmer, who plans to launch a new cruise liner that is a near-replication of the Titanic.
Of course, he said, it would be “designed so it won’t sink”.
Although:
“Of course it will sink if you put a hole in it,” the sometimes jocular Mr Palmer quipped.
The 6am Cut London
Spain’s government and its banks are discussing a ‘bad bank’ scheme, says the FT, citing officials and bankers. However officials said the scheme would not be a bank, and would require participating lenders to set aside sufficient provisions.
The 6am Cut London
The Bank of Japan kept interest rates at zero to 0.1% and said it would expand its asset-purchase fund to 40tn yen from 30tn, reports Bloomberg. Earlier, industrial production data for Q1 showed a lower rise than had been expected,
The 6am Cut London
Asian markets were firm Thursday morning after the Fed published improved projections for the US economy, and Ben Bernanke did not rule out more stimulus, says the FT. More from us on reaction to the FOMC comments.
Political upheaval all round?
Now that austerity-related political risk has reared its unhappy head in the eurozone, it’s worth pondering yet again the fiscal goals that the area aspires — well, sort of — to reach.
Last December,
The 6am Cut London
The Netherlands is in turmoil after the government collapsed at the weekend, says the FT. The spread between Dutch and German bonds widened to 72 basis points – the highest since the eurozone crisis began.
The good news and the bad from the flash China PMIs
The good: the closely-watched index components of new orders and new export orders were only just below the 50 mark, as the below chart from Markit Economics shows.
The bad:
Meanwhile, volumes of work-in-hand (but not yet completed) at manufacturers’ plants were largely unchanged compared to March.
Seven questions about global markets
Some of the answers are a little flippant, but it’s not a bad overview from JP Morgan’s global asset allocation team:
• Why has neither Greece nor Germany left EMU, yet? Or even, why did they ever get in? The crisis has revealed the cost of giving up one’s currency.
Further reading
Elsewhere on Monday,
- Managing risk across multiple dimensions.
- When does Japan cross the event horizon?
- This seems perfectly reasonable.
- More on choosing depression.
- If you can’t beat ‘em,
Vodafone puts up for CWW
To the tune of 38p a share (the shares closed 2p lower at 32p on Friday):
Ÿ Vodafone Europe B.V. (“Vodafone”) and Cable & Wireless Worldwide plc (“CWW” or the “Company”) are pleased to announce that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended cash offer pursuant to which Vodafone will acquire the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of CWW.
The 6am Cut London
The IMF’s “bigger firewall” has been agreed, with commitments totalling an extra $430bn of lending capacity as meetings in Washington finished on Sunday, but questions remain over how any eurozone country would actually obtain access to the funds,
Peak oil goes mainstream (again)
Well, The Economist is talking about it in a non-sneery way.
Okay, perhaps that’s not fair — only in February the newspaper likened oil markets to a horror movie: with prices likely to stay high and tight capacity raising the risk of future price spikes.
The 6am Cut London
Microsoft’s quarterly results were better than expected due to firmer PC sales, reports Reuters. However its earnings were held back by poor Xbox sales, says the FT.
Michael Woodford appeared at an Olympus EGM on Friday in Tokyo,
Eurozone credit contagion, in 8 easy steps
As well as warning that eastern Europe has the most exposure to a eurozone credit freeze, the IMF has given us a handy, visual guide to eurozone contagion (click to enlarge):
Quoth the Fund:
A negative feedback loop could start with a widening of European sovereign yields owing to an increase in sovereign risk.
Spain’s ever-growing, non-performing loans
From the Bank of Spain on Wednesday, with impeccable timing:
(Click to expand)
The ratio is now 8.16 per cent.
You can compare the left-most column (total credit) and the almost-right-most column (‘doubtful debtors’,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Thursday,
- Drilling in the dark zone.
- ‘Choose your husband carefully’ and other advice.
- Alternative currency network proves popular in… Greece.
- Shareholders aren’t happy.
The 6am Cut London
A $2.6tn European bank deleveraging could jeopardise financial stability, says the IMF. The fund warned that banks’ plans to shrink their assets by almost 7% over the next 18 months could hit economic growth,
Further reading
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- The unmagical Voldemort/whale.
- The too big to fail just keep getting bigger.
- Confused? You’re not alone.
- If US presidents can talk to any economist, why these ones?
- What happened when Wang Lijun arrived at the US consulate in Chengdu.
The 6am Cut London
Repsol had tried to sell a controlling stake in YPF to a Chinese energy group before it was nationalised by Buenos Aires, according to two people familiar with the talks. One person identified the Chinese company as Sinopec,