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| Rabobank faces fine of over $440 million for rate rigging: report Monday, Feb 25, 2013 11:58 PM PST AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch group Rabobank is expected to get a fine of more than $440 million for manipulating Libor interest rates, news agency Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Rabobank, the second-largest financial group in the Netherlands by balance sheet size, is expected to reach a settlement with U.S. and UK regulators over claims it tried to manipulate benchmark interest rates, Bloomberg said, citing four people with knowledge of the investigation. ... Full Story | Top |
| Rwanda names central banker as new finance minister in reshuffle Monday, Feb 25, 2013 11:07 PM PST KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda named the country's central bank governor Claver Gatete as finance minister in a cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday, a government website said. Gatete replaces John Rwangombwa, who takes over the position of governor at the National Bank of Rwanda in a direct swap. The website gave no reason for the reshuffle. Full Story | Top |
| Rand holds near 1-week high vs dollar before GDP data Monday, Feb 25, 2013 11:07 PM PST  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The rand held near a one-week high and above a key resistance point in early Tuesday trade and looked likely to break that level if economic growth data overshot market expectations. South Africa releases fourth quarter GDP data at 0930 GMT, the final piece of the economic growth jigsaw for 2012. Economists expect growth to have picked up to 1.6 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis, from 1.2 percent in the third quarter. ... Full Story | Top |
| Nestle buys U.S. medical foods firm Pamlab Monday, Feb 25, 2013 10:49 PM PST  ZURICH (Reuters) - Nestle has agreed to buy U.S. medical foods company Pamlab, the latest in a string of recent acquisitions as the world's biggest food group expands in health and nutrition. Nestle Health Science, which was set up in 2011 as the Swiss-based firm seeks to profit from growing demand for medical foods from an ageing population, said it was not disclosing terms of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval. ... Full Story | Top |
| Asian shares slip, EU bourses set to slide on Italy vote Monday, Feb 25, 2013 10:22 PM PST  TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares declined on Tuesday and the euro hit its lowest in nearly seven weeks against the dollar as an apparently deadlocked election in Italy raised the specter of a resurgent euro zone debt crisis. Italy's main FTSE MIB stock market index is expected to open down 2.5 percent, while other European markets are also seen slumping with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 , Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX would open down as much as 2.6 percent. U.S. stock futures were flat to suggest a cautious Wall Street start. ... Full Story | Top |
| African Rainbow H1 profit falls on weaker iron ore prices Monday, Feb 25, 2013 10:20 PM PST  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African diversified miner African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) said on Tuesday that its first-half earnings had dropped by a third, hurt by a fall in iron ore prices and by rising costs. ARM, which has interests in nickel, coal, platinum, iron ore, chrome and manganese, said headline earnings per share for the six months to end-December had fallen to 654 cents a share, from a restated 937 cents per share a year earlier. Sales of iron ore increased 10 percent to 7. ... Full Story | Top |
| AECI FY earnings down on strike-hit mining sector Monday, Feb 25, 2013 09:54 PM PST  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African chemicals and explosives maker AECI posted a 24 percent fall in annual earnings on Tuesday, snapping three straight years of growth as slack demand from strike-hit mining firms weighed. AECI said headline earnings per share totalled 547 cents in the year to end-December compared with 720 cents a year earlier. Headline EPS, South Africa's primary profit gauge, exclude certain one-off items. Revenue rose 11 percent to 14.92 billion rand, largely as a result of the weaker rand/dollar exchange rate and increased selling prices. Overall volumes were flat. ... Full Story | Top |
| Uganda plans automated bond market to boost liquidity Monday, Feb 25, 2013 09:24 PM PST JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Uganda will introduce automated trading in its bond market this year to increase liquidity, a central bank official said, following Kenya which saw a dramatic rise in bond trading after a similar move. The new platform, which the Bank of Uganda plans to launch by May, will also allow automated settlement and will replace the current paper-based system as part of efforts to deepen the secondary market, Philip Wabulya, the bank's director of financial markets, said. "It's a much more superior system," he told Reuters in a phone interview on Monday. ... Full Story | Top |
| Angola central bank leaves benchmark lending rate at 10 pct Monday, Feb 25, 2013 09:23 PM PST  JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Angola's central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 10 percent, according to a statement posted on its website on Monday after a meeting of its monetary policy committee. Full Story | Top |
| Lukoil to spend $400 million on Ivory Coast exploration Monday, Feb 25, 2013 09:20 PM PST  ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Russia's second-largest oil producer, Lukoil, will spend about $400 million this year on exploration wells near the site of a recent oil find off Ivory Coast, the company and the country's oil minister said on Monday. "This year we will continue our work," company president Vagit Alekperov told journalists after meeting with Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara. "These three drills will give us lots of information on the continental basin and allow us to get a better idea of the discovery made at the 'Independence' well," he said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Brent hits 1-mth low below $114 on Italy vote uncertainty Monday, Feb 25, 2013 09:16 PM PST  SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Brent crude futures fell by more than a dollar to one-month lows below $114 a barrel on Tuesday, hit by worries over demand growth as a potential political vacuum in Italy revived fears over instability in the debt-plagued euro zone. The uncertainty in Rome, along with soft manufacturing data from China and concerns the United States may rein in its economic stimulus, are clouding the global economic outlook and could erode oil's modest price gains so far this year. ... Full Story | Top |
| Bernanke to face Fed critics in testimony to Congress Monday, Feb 25, 2013 09:06 PM PST  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke faces the first of two days of congressional testimony that will subject the Fed's controversial bond-buying program to tough scrutiny and gauge his confidence in the resilience of the U.S. economy. Coming just a week after the Fed's meeting minutes sent U.S. stocks reeling by suggesting the central bank could pull back its economic stimulus earlier than had been expected, and a day after another sharp stock market drop, investors are certain to hang on every word. Beginning with the U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| BP, contractors start trial for worst U.S. offshore spill Monday, Feb 25, 2013 07:03 PM PST  NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A long-awaited trial over the biggest U.S. offshore oil spill began on Monday, with governments, businesses and individuals blaming BP Plc mostly for the 2010 disaster that killed 11 rig workers and spilled 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. "Not only was it within BP's power to prevent the tragedy, it was its responsibility," Mike Underhill, a U.S. Justice Department trial attorney, said at the trial over legal culpability for the blowout and spill. The trial is being held with no jury before Judge Carl Barbier at federal court in New Orleans. ... Full Story | Top |
| GM seeks approval to pay CEO $11.1 million: CNBC Monday, Feb 25, 2013 06:48 PM PST  (Reuters) - General Motors Co wants to pay its chief executive, Dan Akerson, $11.1 million this year, CNBC reported, citing related documents. If the U.S. government approve the plan, Akerson's annual compensation would increase more than 20 percent compared to last year, the report said. (http://link.reuters.com/meg36t) Compensation of GM executives is governed by a special paymaster from the federal government as part of provisions put in place after GM's U.S.-funded bankruptcy restructuring in 2009. No determinations has yet been made for 2013 compensation, a U.S. ... Full Story | Top |
| U.S. gives banking green light to Myanmar tycoons Monday, Feb 25, 2013 05:53 PM PST  YANGON (Reuters) - Two banks owned by tycoons associated with Myanmar's former military regime will start to do business with U.S. companies and investors in the latest reward for the Southeast Asian country's rapid political transformation. The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday it would issue a general licence for four of Myanmar's biggest banks -- Myanma Economic Bank, Myanma Investment and Commercial Bank, Asia Green Development Bank and Ayeyarwady Bank -- allowing U.S. companies and citizens to deal with them. ... Full Story | Top |
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