Archive for December, 2008
Reuters | Amazon sales up, holiday sales down 5%
NEW YORK Reuters – Online retailer Amazon.com Inc AMZN.O said on Friday it posted its best holiday sales season yet, even as sales and traffic at U.S. store chains were the weakest in decades.
Shares in Amazon rose 1 percent in pre-market trading on Friday. Analysts have pointed to Amazon as a rare bright spot in [...]
The Outsourcing Blog…”Horses for Sources”: Expect a phrenetic Q109 for outsourcing activity in the banking sector
Banking is still using the O word. Is it likely?
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )FT.com / Brussels – Lativa to receive €7.5bn in financial aid
The package represents about a third of the country’s gross domestic product, much larger in relative terms than the earlier bail-out of Hungary, reflecting the size of Latvia’s macro-economic imbalances following a credit binge on EU accession in 2004.
The European Union will contribute €3.1bn $4.3bn, £2.9bn, the IMF €1.7bn, Nordic countries €1.8bn, with €400m coming [...]
FT.com / Companies / Banks – Cautious welcome for Irish recapitalisation
The bail-out of Irish banks differs significantly in several key details from the more than £50bn the UK government is injecting into its own banks.
In most respects, the banks and their shareholders have received better terms than their
UK counterparts, though the Irish government’s decision to wait nearly three months has left the banking system weaker.
Unlike [...]
Reuters | The Indymac bill is paid..
NEW YORK Reuters – U.S. regulators are expected to announce a deal for the assets of failed mortgage lender IndyMac before the end of the year, a spokesman for the bank said on Wednesday.
The exact timing of an announcement and whether the company would be sold as a single entity or in pieces was not [...]
Lehmans Neuberger Sale Is Approved – Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds — DealBook – New York Times
Lehman Brothers on Monday won bankruptcy court approval to sell its prized investment management division, including Neuberger Berman, to a group led by Neuberger’s management, Reuters reported.
Judge James M. Peck of the United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan approved the deal at a hearing. The deal is worth $922 million after adjustments, Lori Fife, a [...]
BBC NEWS | Business | EU approves UK finance measures
The changes relate to fees paid by banks to the government, and increase the number of currencies in which government guarantees can be issued.
The commission also approved rescue measures for Germany, Italy and Spain.
The decisions should clear the way for more cash injections and loan guarantees to troubled banks.
Common approach
The changes bring the British package [...]
Reuters | 5 yr low in PE Deals
Private equity deal volume sank to a five-year low in 2008, one of the industrys roughest years ever, and 2009 is unlikely to get any easier as firms struggle to find deals, keep portfolio companies above water, and pacify increasingly restless investors.
Global private equity activity sank to $188.7 billion 126 billion pounds this year, down [...]
FT.com / Brussels – Eurozone orders signal tough year ahead
October’s orders were 15.1 per cent lower than a year before – the sharpest drop since at least 1995, when comparable records began. Leading the decline, motor vehicle orders were more than 30 per cent lower in October than a year before, Eurostat said.
With orders data proving early warning signals of likely trends in economic [...]
FT.com / Companies / Banks – Mortgage activity surges at US banks
With average rates for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage now at about 5.2 per cent, growing numbers of borrowers have an incentive to refinance to bring down their mortgage costs.
But tighter underwriting standards for prospective borrowers, combined with funding and staffing difficulties for mortgage originators, are likely to restrict the supply of new mortgages.
“The mortgage industry [...]
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