Originally targeting a share offering of between $16 and $20, Manchester United has been forced to cut down to $14 in advance of today’s historic flotation on the New York Stock Exchange. The Glazer family are eager to float Britain’s largest football club in the US in order to help service the large debts that were loaded onto the company when they bought it in 2005 for $1.25bn. They intended to sell a ten percent stake in the business, which should raise around $330m. The family has come in for criticism, however, as reports have suggested they are to take $140m of that amount for themselves, instead of using it all to pay off debts of ...
Belgium has interrupted the use of one of its seven nuclear reactors, after suspicion was raised that one of its components might be cracked, according to the local atomic regulator. The Doel 3 reactor, located around 25km north of Antwerp provides around 16 percent of the country’s nuclear energy. The suspected damages aren’t thought to pose a safety threat, according to Belgium’s nuclear watchdog AFCN, but activities will remain halted at least until the end of August. “We have found anomalies,” said Karina De Beule, spokesman for the ACFN. “At present we can guarantee that there are no risks to workers, citizens and the environ...
A slowdown in industrial output and retail sales has seen China’s economy stumble in the second half of 2012, alarming investors who had hoped the world’s second largest economy would be immune to the troubles affecting the US and Europe. The economy slowed to 7.6 percent for the second quarter of this year, the lowest rate China has seen since 2009. Industrial output slumped to 9.2 percent in July, despite forecasts that it would rise from the 9.5 percent in June. In a note to clients, Nomura economist Zhang Zhiwei said: “Weak industrial production growth is likely to trigger stronger policy easing. The possibility of an interest-rate ...
After agreeing a deal between Sudan and South Sudan that aims to open up the oil production of the two countries, the US is hoping that China and Middle Eastern states will help invest up to $3bn to get oil flowing. The deal between the two neighbouring countries will see South Sudan pay a fee of $9.48 for every barrel transported through a pipeline in Sudan, as well as paying over $3bn to Khartoum as a result of the separation of the two countries. However, Sudan also requires an additional $3bn to fill the funding gap created by the separation. South Sudan is relatively oil rich compared to its neighbour, and upon secession took much of the...
With the financial crisis engulfing the Greek economy, the leaders of the country’s state owned financial institutions might be expected to show solidarity with struggling citizens by keeping their money in the country. However, it has been revealed that the former chief of struggling ATEbank has been transferring his personal savings abroad. Theodore Pantalakis admitted this weekend that he had sent as much as €8m abroad in order to purchase London property, just a few months before ATEbank was declared non-viable. The bank was split up last month, with many of its assets being taken over by Greece’s fourth largest lender, Piraeus Bank...
The World Bank is about to resume lending to Burma for the first time since 1987. Together with its investment branch the International Finance Corporation and the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank has opened its first offices in the former capital, Rangoon (now Yangon). The ADB has also set up shop in the capital Naypyidaw, becoming the first international financial institution to do so. All lending was suspended almost 25 years ago when Burma stopped its repayments. Burma’s return to the borrowing market is reinforced by Japan’s plan to extend around $900m in bridging loans to the embattled South East Asia nation. Tokyo also announ...
As Facebook shares dropped around four percent to a record low on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune took a $423m hit. The 28-year-old is now worth only about $10.2bn, over $400m behind James Goodnight, co-founder of the SAS Institute, and tech’s tenth wealthiest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. This Thursday Facebook shares were 47 percent lower than their initial public offering price of $38. Zuckerberg’s personal fortune comes from his 503.6 million Facebook shares, including 60 million options that currently have an exercise price of 6 cents a share. He also has over $150m in cash and other liquid assets. The ...
A sharp rise in grain prices is reverberating around the world as nations face food inflation. There has been a 30-50 percent gain in the benchmark price of corn, wheat and soyabeans, are echoing the 2007/8 food crisis. Countries likely to face the biggest repercussions are those dependant on agricultural imports. The Indonesian tofu industry is threatening to strike over the rise in soyabean prices and consumers in Iran took to the streets to protest the high cost of chicken. “For sure there is growing concern across the world from developing countries about what this may mean for them,” says Marc Sadler, head of agricultural risk manage...
Taiwan’s economy has contracted in the second quarter by 0.16 percent, according to official data. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected it to grow by as much as 0.5 percent. “With deteriorating of European debt crisis and slowdown in major economies, the global demand is expected to decelerate and the outlook of world trade in 2012 is fragile,” according to a statement by the Taiwan statistics and budget authority. The growth prospect for 2012 has been brought down to 2.1 percent from a previous estimate of three percent. In the first quarter the Taiwanese economy grew 0.4 percent. The central bank is taking measures to encourage...
Lending by German banks to weaker parts of the eurozone has dropped to nearly 20 percent since the beginning of the year and is currently at its lowest level since 2005, according to central bank data. A total of €55bn less in net loans were granted to Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain by German banks between January and late May this year, according to Morgan Stanley’s analysis of Bundesbank figures. Only €241bn of loans were granted. There has been a trend for German and French banks to retrench their cross-border exposure since mid-2010, but the new figures suggest that the process of domestic market bias has sped up. The ...