| CATEGORY: PRESS ROUND-UP SHORT SECTOR: TRAVEL & LEISURE |
Thursday newspaper round-up: British Airways, Bradford & Bingley, HBOS |
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Thu 14 Aug 2008
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LONDON (SHARECAST) - American Airlines, British Airways and Spain’s Iberia are expected to announce Thursday they are applying for antitrust immunity from the US and European competition authorities to form a transatlantic joint venture that would create one of the most powerful forces in the Atlantic aviation market, says the FT.
Shares in Bradford & Bingley, the beleagered UK bank, yesterday slipped below the price set for its £400m rights issue, leaving the underwriters UBS and Citigroup stuck with potentially millions of pounds worth of stock unwanted by existing investors, writes the Independent.
HBOS, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, is to cut 425 jobs and close one of its five mortgage brands to new business as it aims to streamline costs. The bank, which recently reported a 72 per cent slump in first-half profits to £848m and saw its £4bn rights issue shunned by most investors, said the shake-up was aimed at reducing duplication between brands, reports the FT.
The majority of the 2,000 wedding couples waiting for gifts from Wrapit, the collapsed online wedding list company, will not receive any of their presents after KPMG, the company's administrator, said yesterday that the company has ceased trading, according to the Telegraph.
Unemployment is surging at its fastest rate for 16 years, with the latest figures showing that the number of people out of work and claiming jobless benefit rose by 20,100 last month, says the Times.
Vodafone is to add 50 shops to its 350-strong retail network over the coming 12 months, hiring an extra 200-plus staff on top of the 300 already being recruited to improve its face-to-face customer service, writes the Independent.
The pound has fallen to its weakest level in 12 years after the Bank of England signalled that it is no longer prepared to raise interest rates, according to the Telegraph.
The recovery in housebuilders' share prices over the past 30 days appears to suggest that many of the sector's problems are now behind them. The three most indebted companies - Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey - have seen their shares rally between 40pc and 100pc over the past four weeks, reports the Telegraph.
The fashionable investment tactic of the past month - buying bank stocks while selling energy companies - could already have gone too far, Merrill Lynch, the financial management group, warned clients yesterday, says the Times.
A sharp rise in bad debts and mortgage arrears has led to a near 40 per cent fall in profits at Britannia Building Society. The UK's second largest mutual yesterday blamed the housing crisis for a fall in its first-half profits, which came in at £31m, down from £50.5m in 2007, reports the Independent.
Robert Tchenguiz has bought back the leases on about 80 of the former Laurel pubs and bars he controversially put into administration in March. The Iranian property tycoon placed Laurel and its 383 pubs and restaurants in administration earlier this year but immediately used a move known as a "pre-pack" to buy back 292 sites through new ventures Town & City Pub Company and Bay Restaurant Group, writes the Telegraph.
More than 100 store staff at Comet could lose their jobs as the UK electricals retailer cuts costs amid tough trading in the retail sector, according to the Independent.
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