Today's Reuters Business News Headlines - Yahoo! News:
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Pensions face £90 billion hit from QE2
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:56 PM PST
Reuters -  LONDON (Reuters) - The cost to the pension industry of the Bank of England's latest round of quantitative easing could total 90 billion pounds, diverting company cash away from investment in the economy in order to plug retirement fund deficits, the industry warned on Thursday. Quantitative easing (QE) depresses the yield on government bonds, known as gilts, a staple investment for pensions funds, making it more expensive to pay for future liabilities, the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) said. ...
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Apple unveils 4G iPad
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:43 PM PST
Reuters -  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc's latest iPad sports a crisper display and an array of technology advances that, while less than revolutionary, may prove enough for now to keep rivals like Amazon.com Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd at bay. While stopping short of vaulting ahead of Motorola and Samsung, the device -- which comes 4G-ready and boasts a quad-core graphics processor -- is capable enough to help safeguard its two-thirds market share. "The screen is a notable feature for non-techie customers, as is the faster connectivity. ...
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Greek bond swap offer "going well": government official
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:36 PM PST
Reuters - ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece has seen a strong take-up of its bond swap offer to private investors, a government official said on Thursday ahead of a 2000 GMT deadline for accepting the deal, a key element in an 130 billion euro international rescue package. "The pace of responses to the bond offer is good, the percentage of bondholders tendering voluntarily is very high," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. ... Full Story | Top |
Talisman to sell coal assets to Xstrata for $500 million
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:20 PM PST
Reuters - (Reuters) - Canada's independent oil explorer Talisman Energy Inc said Xstrata Coal has agreed to buy the company's non-core coal assets located in Northeast British Columbia for $500 million in cash. Talisman said the deal is expected to close in March 2012. "This is in keeping with our strategic objective to focus Talisman's portfolio on material, core assets," Paul Smith, Talisman's Executive Vice-President of North American Operations, said in a statement. (Reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters ) (Corrects purchasing company name to Xstrata in headline) Full Story | Top |
Implats: no offer made to Zimbabwe on local unit
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:13 PM PST
Reuters - JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's Impala Platinum has denied it made an "irrevocable offer" to hand over a stake in its local unit to the government of Zimbabwe. "Implats has not made an irrevocable offer to the Zimbabwe government today," the company said in a statement late on Wednesday. A senior Zimbabwe minister told Reuters on Wednesday that the world's second-largest platinum producer had made the offer to hand over a 29.5 percent stake in its Zimplats unit to a state-run fund. ... Full Story | Top |
S.Africa's Mpact earnings leap, declares dividend
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:12 PM PST
Reuters - JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African packaging company Mpact on Thursday reported a four-fold increase in underlying earnings after the company was spun out of Mondi Group. Underlying earnings per share for the year to end-December were up to 102.9 cents from 24.3 cents in 2010. The increase in earnings is due primarily to lower financing costs and strong cash generation in the second half of the year. A maiden cash dividend of 40 cents per share was declared. ... Full Story | Top |
S.Africa rand firms, bonds gain
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:12 PM PST
Reuters - JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand firmed on Thursday along with other commodity currencies as risk appetite was lifted by an uptick in U.S. private sector jobs data and the prospect of more banks participating in a Greek bond swap. The rand was trading at 7.5817 to the dollar at 0623 GMT, 0.18 percent firmer than Tuesday's New York close of 7.596. Reuters releases its South Africa Econometer survey for February at 0930 GMT and January manufacturing statistics are due at 1100 GMT. Economists expect factory output to have quickened to 2.5 percent from 2.4 percent in December. ... Full Story | Top |
Analysis: China's budding Caterpillars break new ground overseas
Wed,7 Mar 2012 11:00 PM PST
Reuters -  HONG KONG (Reuters) - When concrete-pump maker and symbol of German industrial strength Putzmeister rolled up at Japan's Fukushima last year to help tackle the nuclear disaster, few industry watchers might have guessed it would soon be bought by China's Sany Heavy Industry. Sany , often referred to as China's Caterpillar , and other top domestic construction gear makers such as XCMG Group and Zoomlion Heavy Industry are stepping up their overseas hunt for assets that will give them more than just technological know-how. ...
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Kenya's Equity bank says 2011 pretax rises 42 pct
Wed,7 Mar 2012 10:39 PM PST
Reuters -  NAIROBI (Reuters) - Equity Bank of Kenya posted a 42 percent growth in its pretax profit for 2011 to 12.83 billion shillings, thanks to growth in its net interest income and a fall in bad debts provisions, its chief executive said on Thursday. Equity, which is the largest bank by customers in the east African nation, raised its earnings per share by 45 percent to 2.79 shillings and the dividend per share by 25 percent to 1.0 shillings, James Mwangi told an investor briefing.
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StanBank FY earnings up 21 percent, bad debts down
Wed,7 Mar 2012 10:36 PM PST
Reuters -  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Standard Bank, Africa's largest lender, reported an expected 21 percent rise in full-year profit on Thursday, helped by a decline in bad debts, and said it expected subdued growth in 2012 as it focused on cutting costs. Standard Bank, which is 20 percent owned by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, reported diluted headline earnings of 860.4 cents in the 12 months to end-December, up from 708.6 cents a year earlier. The lender had indicated earnings likely rose as much as 22 percent. ...
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GM CEO sees European losses continuing for 1-2 years
Wed,7 Mar 2012 10:34 PM PST
Reuters -  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - General Motors Co chief executive Dan Akerson said it may be two years before its European division is back in profit as the continent sheds over-capacity the same way the U.S. industry had to over the past half decade. The world's largest automaker has lost money in Europe for the last 12 years. "I think it'll be a good year or two before we can achieve profitability in Europe again," Akerson said at an on-stage interview conducted in San Francisco on Wednesday night. ...
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Zimbabwe's Innscor H1 earnings rise sharply
Wed,7 Mar 2012 10:33 PM PST
Reuters - HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean fast food and retail group Innscor Africa posted a 59 percent rise in half-year earnings as it ramped up volumes to meet demand in an economy recovering from a decade of decline. The company said on Thursday its basic earnings per share were 4.15 cents in the six months to December 2011, up from 2.61 cents a year earlier. Innscor's revenues expanded by a quarter to $319.5 million and after tax profit was up 43 percent to $27.5 million from the 2010 figure. Full Story | Top |
Shares recover on Greece bond swap hopes
Wed,7 Mar 2012 10:31 PM PST
Reuters - TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares recovered on Thursday as investors cautiously bet on brightening prospects for Greece to secure a crucial bond swap, and so avoid a messy default, and U.S. data suggesting a recovery in the labour market ahead of key jobs figures. Other assets, from copper and gold to oil, along with commodity-linked currencies such as the Australian dollar, eked out gains, while the dollar took the back seat as risk sentiment warmed. The Greek debt swap deal and U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
AB InBev fourth-quarter profit above forecasts, sees 2012 growth
Wed,7 Mar 2012 10:21 PM PST
Reuters - BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Anheuser-Busch InBev , the world's largest brewer, beat expectations for profit growth in the fourth quarter on Thursday and forecast that consumers in its two main markets - the United States and Brazil - would be drinking more in 2012. The brewer of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Beck's, reported a 12.2 percent like-for-like rise in core profit (EBITDA) in the final three months of 2011 to $4.24 billion, clearly above the $4.14 billion average expectation in a Reuters poll. The brewer said it was also proposing a 50-percent increase in its dividend to 1.20 euros. ... Full Story | Top |
Yen hurt by Japan current account, Aussie down on jobs
Wed,7 Mar 2012 10:14 PM PST
Reuters - TOKYO (Reuters) - The yen dipped against the dollar on Thursday in a knee-jerk reaction to data showing Japan's current account swung to a record deficit in January, while the Australian dollar fell on a weak jobs report that kept alive expectations of a rate cut. Short-term players sold the Japanese unit after Tokyo posted its first current account deficit in three years. It came in at 437.3 billion yen in January, above market estimates of 317.8 billion yen. ... Full Story | Top |
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