Iron ore prices fall to five-month low
Iron ore prices have fallen to their lowest in five months amid a wave of negativity that has led Chinese traders and steel mills to sell down their stocks of…
Week in review, May 18
©Bloomberg Tony Hayward’s job at Glencore Xstrata is to supervise the search for a successor to Sir John Bond A round up of some of the week’s most significant corporate…
Indonesia extends logging moratorium
©Reuters Burnt trees in a peatland in Indonesia’s Riau province Indonesia has extended its landmark moratorium on logging for another two years but environmentalists and senior officials say the government…
Tata writedown sparks talk of UK sell-off
Tata Steel’s $1.6bn writedown of the value of its European business has sparked rumours of a sell-off of its UK operations, casting more doubt on the future of an already…
Rusal raises profits amid falling prices
©Bloomberg Oleg Deripaska’s Rusal on Tuesday reported a better than expected net profit of $52m, yet concerns remain about the company’s recovery following a sharp decline in aluminium prices. Market…
European downturn tests Tata’s steel
©Getty Tata Steel’s 2007 purchase of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus for $13.1bn promised to transform the Indian group into a global metals giant, able to prosper in emerging and industrial markets…
Tata Steel reveals $1.6bn writedown
©PA India’s Tata Steel has announced a $1.6bn writedown on its struggling European division, underlining the chronic difficulties facing steelmakers across the continent. In a notice to the Bombay Stock…
Mittal seeks Europe-China trade barriers
©Bloomberg Lakshmi Mittal says EU should embrace protectionist measures to guard against unfair Chinese competition Lakshmi Mittal has urged Europe to erect trade barriers to protect its manufacturers as the…
How Africa can extract fair value
©Reuters Last week’s report from Kofi Annan’s Africa Progress Panel has brought to light the unfairness of recent resource extraction contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In doing so,…
ArcelorMittal: flexible friends
As Lakshmi Mittal strolls through his three properties on London’s billionaire’s row, he can hold his head a tad higher these days. After an embarrassing 80 per cent fall in…
Upbeat results boost ArcelorMittal shares
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker by sales, surprised the market on Friday when it reported higher core profits, lower debts and a strong outlook for an industry that has suffered…
Timken: metal testing
Is steel weak enough to be broken into two pieces? The answer looks to be yes. Relational Investors, an activist shareholder, is on its way to breaking up Timken Co,…
Germany: for richer, for poorer
Pity the poor Germans. Never mind that two Bundesliga teams are in the Champions League football final this month. Or that the Dax index of German stocks hit an all-time…
Cooksey quit ENRC after spat with oligarchs
The chairman of Eurasian Natural Resources Corp at the time of the FTSE 100 miner’s London flotation resigned in 2009 after a disagreement with controlling shareholders, say people close to…
ADM sets $25m aside for corruption case
Archer Daniels Midland has set aside $25m for potential fines related to a longstanding foreign corruption probe, the company has revealed. The announcement represents the company’s first estimate of the…