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  • Finance News - Business news from the UK and world

  • Debt crisis: live

    Debt crisis: live
    European markets open down, as Asian markets record heavy losses following a sell-off on Wall Street after Fitch warns of mass eurozone downgrades.

  • FTSE 100 plunges through support levels

    FTSE 100 plunges through support levels
    The FTSE 100 has plunged through support levels as the dire situation in the eurozone kept the bears in control on the market, Spanish banks were downgraded en masse by Moody's overnight, and Fitch cut its debt rating for Greece.

  • London Stock Exchange profits jump 30pc

    London Stock Exchange profits jump 30pc
    The London Stock Exchange has seen profits jump by nearly a third, driven by the inclusion of its newly-acquired index business and its clearing unit.

  • Spanish government 'hires Goldman Sachs to value Bankia'

    Spanish government 'hires Goldman Sachs to value Bankia'
    The Spanish government has reportedly hired Goldman Sachs to carry out an independent valuation of Bankia, the ailing bank taken over by the state last week.

  • Lloyds sent bankers on luxury spa break

    Lloyds sent bankers on luxury spa break
    Executives from the bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group were sent on a luxury spa break to teach them how to be more effective "hunter-gatherers in the corporate jungle".

  • Business news, technology, media and finance reports

  • MARKETS: Facebook raises $16 billion in IPO

    MARKETS: Facebook raises $16 billion in IPO
    Facebook raised $16 billion in its initial public offering (IPO), with shares priced at $38 as the company begins trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday, putting the social networking website?s value at $104 billion.

  • ENERGY: Repsol sues Argentina over YPF nationalisation

    ENERGY: Repsol sues Argentina over YPF nationalisation
    Spain's Repsol oil giant and US firm Texas Yale Capital filed a class action lawsuit against the Argentinean state in New York on Tuesday for "compensatory damages" over the country's May 4 nationalisation of the firm's YPF division.

  • GREECE-IMF: Greece could exit eurozone, IMF chief tells FRANCE 24

    GREECE-IMF: Greece could exit eurozone, IMF chief tells FRANCE 24
    International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde told FRANCE 24 on Tuesday that even an "orderly" Greek exit from the eurozone would pose great risks but remains an option if the country's "budgetary commitments are not honoured".

  • BANKING: Three JPMorgan executives to resign after shock loss

    BANKING: Three JPMorgan executives to resign after shock loss
    Three senior executives at US banking giant JPMorgan Chase are set to resign this week following a trading blunder that resulted in a shocking $2 billion loss, which could extend to $3 billion through the end of June, US media has reported.

  • United States: Tech giant Yahoo! names interim chief executive

    United States: Tech giant Yahoo! names interim chief executive
    US tech giant Yahoo! announced Sunday that Ross Levinsohn will temporarily replace chief executive Scott Thompson, who has resigned following controversy about his allegedly inflated resume.
 
 
  • GigaOM Network

  • Kleiner Perkins closes $525M fund, makes changes [GigaOM]

    Kleiner Perkins closes $525M fund, makes changes [GigaOM]
    Kleiner Perkins says it has closed its next $525 million fund 15 and confirms that cleantech-focused investors Ray Lane and Bill Joy will not be leading investments for the new fund.

  • Kleiner Perkins closes $525M fund, makes changes [Earth2Tech]

    Kleiner Perkins closes $525M fund, makes changes [Earth2Tech]
    Kleiner Perkins says it has closed its next $525 million fund 15 and confirms that cleantech-focused investors Ray Lane and Bill Joy will not be leading investments for the new fund.

  • Kleiner Perkins closes $525M fund, makes changes [Company News]

    Kleiner Perkins closes $525M fund, makes changes [Company News]
    Kleiner Perkins says it has closed its next $525 million fund 15 and confirms that cleantech-focused investors Ray Lane and Bill Joy will not be leading investments for the new fund.

  • Why 900M isn?t the only number that matters to Facebook [GigaOM]

    Why 900M isn?t the only number that matters to Facebook [GigaOM]
    Facebook's hyperinflated valuation heading into its IPO has everything to do with its promise, and very little to do with its actual profits. Here are some numbers we know about Facebook's infrastructure that speak to its promise perhaps as much as its 900 million users.

  • Why 900M isn?t the only number that matters to Facebook [Company News]

    Why 900M isn?t the only number that matters to Facebook [Company News]
    Facebook's hyperinflated valuation heading into its IPO has everything to do with its promise, and very little to do with its actual profits. Here are some numbers we know about Facebook's infrastructure that speak to its promise perhaps as much as its 900 million users.
  • The Economist: Business

  • Schumpeter: Good business; nice beaches

    Schumpeter: Good business; nice beaches

    ON JUNE 17th a hubbub of activists will gather in Rio de Janeiro for a conference on ?good business for a sustainable future?, sponsored by something called the Ethical Fashion Initiative. They will listen to a farmer talking about the social consequences of cotton and a theologian debating the meaning of the word ?value?. No doubt they will also admire Rio?s beautiful beaches and the beachgoers who waste ?very few of the Earth?s precious resources on clothes?, as P.J. O?Rourke once put it.Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has a hard-earned reputation for flakiness. CSR types don?t just swap agreeable-sounding platitudes (?doing well by doing good?). They do so in agreeable places, ?for the same reason that the American Association of Hose and Nozzle Manufacturers has to hold all its important meetings in Las Vegas,? observed Mr O?Rourke, a humorist. ?Rio is, um, convenient to major air travel facilities.?Yet there is more to CSR than empty phrases and exotic conferences. Serious business gurus such as Michael Porter and the late C.K. Prahalad have lent their support to the movement. Most of the world?s big...

  • Selling clothes online in Russia: Fabric of society

    Selling clothes online in Russia: Fabric of society

    ONLINE as well as offline, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Vente-Privée, a firm founded on the strange notion that French women might like fashionable clothes at deep discounts, has been paid this compliment more than most. Companies cut from similar cloth have appeared in one country after another. In 2008 two German men, Damian Doberstein and Oskar Hartmann, spotted that Russian women were missing out. ?No one was telling Russian women, ?You could look good for 70% less?,? Mr Hartmann says.They expect that their company, KupiVIP, will have sales of around $200m this year. Mr Hartmann says it breaks even. Given the fast growth of Russia?s internet population and of a middle class eager for nice clothes but mostly a long way from nice shops, the two men think they could turn over $1 billion within five years.The pair want to fill more than just the smarter end of the female wardrobe. Besides their original business, which is still the biggest part of the group, they have an online full-price shop, ShopTime, aimed at both sexes and all shapes and sizes. They also run online shops on behalf of well-...

  • The internet business in Russia: Europe?s great exception

    The internet business in Russia: Europe?s great exception

    ON THE roof, where staff can smoke as well as work, is a big chess set. The names of meeting rooms are in the Cyrillic alphabet. Two sides of the courtyard are a building site of five hollow storeys. You could say that the headquarters of Yandex, Russia?s biggest online-search company, symbolises the country?s whole internet economy: a bit smaller than expected, but growing fast, and unmistakably Russian.
    Last year the number of Russians online went up by 14%, to 53m. That made Russia?s online population Europe?s biggest, just ahead of Germany?s, with lots of room left to grow (see chart). GP Bullhound, an investment bank, reckons that only 18% of those people shop online and that online advertising, though rising fast, takes up only 9% of Russian ad budgets. Yandex?s revenues, most of which come from ads, reflect this pretty faithfully. In the first...

  • Commercial aircraft: Duelling the duopolies

    Commercial aircraft: Duelling the duopolies

    The troubled Superjet
    IT MAY well turn out that pilot error, or something other than a fault in the aircraft, made a Russian-built Sukhoi Superjet crash into a mountain in Indonesia on May 9th, killing all on board. But the disaster, on top of recent reports of unreliability among the first Superjets to go into service, is bound to hinder Russia?s ambition to become a big exporter of modern commercial aircraft. And the Russians are not the only ones trying, and struggling, to do so.The Chinese, like the Russians, have spent years working on planes that, they hope, will muscle in on the two near-duopolies in the world airliner market. Russia?s Superjet, and its Chinese equivalent, the ARJ21, are smaller ?regional? jets, the market for which is dominated by Embraer of Brazil and Bombardier of Canada. The much juicier market for full-sized airliners is currently divided between America?s Boeing and the Franco-German Airbus. Russia?s MC-21 and China?s C919, also under development, are potential competitors to Boeing?s 737 and Airbus?s A320.The Superjet, which has been certified by the...

  • Love, Korean-style: Two?s company

    Love, Korean-style: Two?s company

    Let?s swap emoticons
    SOUTH KOREANS take romance seriously. Lovers are expected to swap sweet nothings many times a day and woe betide the clod who forgets a ?100-day anniversary?. Some pairs dress in ?couple style?, in the same garish red sweater and blue jeans combo, for instance. Small wonder that a Korean firm has created a social network for couples.VCNC?s app is called ?Between?. It creates a private space for two people, in which they can share photographs and special memories, chat in real time and exchange any number of cute ?emoticons?: smiley faces, winks, hearts and so on. Though revolting to singles, Between is a hit. Since its launch in November, more than 560,000 Koreans have fallen for it. This comes despite VCNC spending virtually nothing on marketing. Park Jae-uk, the firm?s boss, claims another 200,000 users abroad, divided between China, Japan and North America.Between is part of a trend towards intimacy in social networking. Some Facebook users are fed up with the torrent of ?friend? requests from people they barely know. Others resent being tagged in embarrassing...