Quarter of board members ‘would pay bribes’
A quarter of board members of UK companies would consider paying a bribe to win business, despite wide-ranging anti-graft laws that came into force more than a year ago. The…
Fresh profit warning hits Lamprell shares
The chairman of Lamprell, the FTSE 250 specialist engineering group, has promised a clear-out of its senior management team after another profit warning that prompted shares in the company to…
Indian car market suffers sharp slowdown
©Bloomberg A Nissan Micra comes off the assembly line in Chennai. Nissan India’s chief is unmoved by talk of trouble in the country’s car market At the launch of his…
Alstom – what’s the deal?
In a low interest rate environment, it is questionable when a company funds a deal through equity rather than debt. While there may be many good reasons for such a…
Secret electronics prompt US merger fears
A former mill town in New England might seem an improbable place for engineers to be developing some of the world’s most advanced electronic warfare systems. But it is at…
EADS seeks north America scale
Some time in 2016, at a former US airforce supply centre on the edge of Mobile, Alabama, the first of many A320 aircraft will emerge from a new production facility…
Wolseley – paying dividends
Wolseley’s ability to ride a perilous-looking housing downturn is paying dividends – literally. Despite the shrinking of the housing markets in the US and Europe, the world’s biggest trade supplier…
Ferreira dispels Vale investors’ worst fears
Murilo Ferreira is not how you would picture the chief executive of one of the world’s most powerful and aggressive mining companies. Fiddling nervously with a pencil, the 59-year-old talks…
Construction sector remains in doldrums
Construction in the UK continued to decline last month in spite of increased activity on civil engineering projects, according to a survey. The construction sector only accounts for about 7…
Wolseley compensates for dividend hiatus
Investors in Wolseley are poised to receive a windfall after the building supplies group said it would boost its full-year dividend by a third and return an additional £350m to…
EADS chief signals BAE progress
©Getty Checks are carried out on a military helicopter at the Eurocopter plant in Germany owned by EADS The chief executive of EADS on Monday signalled that progress had been…
White House reassures defence contractors
The White House has said it would cover legal costs related to mass lay-offs by defence contractors if automatic cuts to the Pentagon budget take effect next year, in a…
Jana takes Agrium appeal to shareholders
In the latest sign of the investor activism jarring boardrooms, Barry Rosenstein of Jana Partners has taken his appeal for the break-up of Canadian fertiliser group Agrium directly to shareholders.…
US move raises Chinese investment fears
When Barack Obama on Friday blocked a Chinese company on grounds of national security from developing wind farms in Oregon, the Treasury department hurried to insist that the president’s decision…
ArcelorMittal shuts part of French plant
ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, has signalled a tougher approach to its European operations by announcing the permanent closure of part of a French plant with the loss of up…