A round-up of today's other business news in brief ...
Investors shun British bond auction
A British government bond auction failed for the first time in seven years yesterday in a sign of rising strains in bond markets over record amounts of debt issuance needed to pay for stimulus packages and bank bailouts.
Alarm over rising UK debt levels and renewed fears over inflation saw investors shun the auction, with bids for the long-dated bonds, due to mature in 2049, falling short of the £1.75 billion (€1.87 billion) wanted.
A warning by Mervyn King, the Bank of England governor, when he cautioned the government from announcing a second stimulus package in next month’s budget also sent shivers through the bond markets. It is the first time a UK bond auction has failed since September 2002. – (Financial Times service)
McCaughey resigns another position
Businessman Gerry McCaughey has resigned as chairman of the Property Registration Authority, just hours after stepping down as chairman of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
Mr McCaughey is the founder of timber housing firm Century Homes, and a former Progressive Democrats election candidate. His decision to tender his resignation from both organisations comes after it was revealed that he and other shareholders of Century Homes avoided paying capital gains tax on their huge gains when they sold the company to Kingspan for €74 million in 2005, by using a tax device brought to their attention by accountancy firm KPMG.
Management cuts at Qantas airline
Australian carrier Qantas will cut 90 senior management positions and maintain its salary freeze to help save costs.
Dublin-born chief executive Alan Joyce said the aviation sector faced considerable commercial challenges and it was necessary to respond decisively to safeguard the airline’s future.
The airline last year said it would cut 1,500 jobs. – (Bloomberg)
Drilling results cheer Tullow Oil
Listed exploration group Tullow Oil,which has major projects in Ghana and Uganda, said yesterday morning that it had found oil-bearing sands at its Tweneboa-1 exploration well offshore Ghana and at the Karuka-2 exploration well on the Vundu prospect in Block 2 Uganda.
Glencar Mining gets $40m funding
Explorer Glencar Mining has announced that it has signed a letter of intent with gold producer Gold Fields that will see the Irish firm receive up to $40 million (€29.5 million) in funding.
The companies are to form a joint venture in relation to Glencar’s Komana licence in Mali, west Africa.
1,200 jobs to go at HSBC in Britain
HSBC said yesterday it was cutting about 1,200 jobs in Britain as costcutting across the battered banking industry continues to force job losses. Most of the cuts are expected to be in processing and operations.
HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank, employs about 58,000 people in Britain and 312,000 people globally. – (Reuters)
BCM salary
In an article last week, it was stated that Andrew Day, the incoming chief executive of Babcock Brown Capital Management (BCM), the majority shareholder in Eircom, might receive €1.5 million as a result of a sale of the Irish telco. In fact, Mr Day, who will receive a basic salary equivalent of A$900,000 (€453,548), will receive “up to 1.5 million ‘share performance rights’ in BCM in the event of a change of control of BCM, including the sale of all or most of Eircom”. The error occurred in the editing process.
