A round-up of today's other business news in brief
US firms raise $7bn to join payback queue
US financial groups hoping to repay government aid sold more than $7 billion in fresh equity yesterday after the authorities ordered them to raise additional capital if they wanted to be in the first wave of lenders to return bailout funds.
JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and American Express all raised equity they had claimed they did not need in order to comply with the new request from the Federal Reserve and US Treasury, bankers said.
Bank executives said the Fed and the Treasury had given them specific targets of how much they had to raise to be allowed repay funds from the troubled asset relief programme before their rivals. – (Copyright 2009 The Financial Times Limited)
Firms in line for biotech funding
Eight Irish firms are among those that will benefit from a new €2.3 million, three-year programme to support research in the biopharmaceutical sector.
Elan, BioUetikon, Stokes Bio, Valcon Consulting, Luxcel Biosciences, Cellix, DPS Engineering, Pharmeng and Technopath have been approved for the programme that will also have involvement from multinationals such as Wyeth, Johnson Johnson, Pfizer, and Schering Plough.
The programme is being funded by Enterprise Ireland and aims to improve processes for manufacturing biopharmaceutical medicines.
Setanta defaults on payment – report
Irish pay-TV broadcaster Setanta, which is in talks with sporting bodies to renegotiate rights terms, has missed a £3 million (€3.5 million) payment owed to the Scottish Premier League, according to media reports.
The Herald newspaper and other reports in Scotland cited soccer club bosses as saying Setanta had defaulted on the payment owed for broadcasting live matches.
Setanta declined to comment on the report and no one at the SPL was immediately available to comment. – (Reuters)
Eurozone jobless rate rises to 9.2%
Eurozone unemployment jumped to its highest level in nearly 10 years in April, dampening hopes of any quick economic recovery.
The unemployment rate in the 16 countries using the euro reached 9.2 per cent, the highest level since September 1999.
This brings the number of out of work in the euro zone to 14.579 million, the EU statistics office said, hurting consumer purchasing power despite record low inflation. – (Reuters)
Sunny weather boosts Kingfisher
Kingfisher, Europe’s largest home-improvement retailer, said first-quarter profit rose more than expected after warmer weather and store refurbishments spurred sales at its BQ chain.
Earnings before interest and tax climbed to £128 million in the 13 weeks ended May 2nd, a 39 per cent increase from a year earlier on a constant currency basis, the company said.
The owner of the Castorama store chain in France said same-store sales fell 1.7 per cent, less than the previous quarter’s 4.1 per cent decline. – (Bloomberg)
Facebook to tap new revenue stream
Facebook has begun tapping a new revenue stream with the introduction of an internal payments system, a move that might help the fast-growing social networking website achieve profitability while being less reliant on advertising.
The long-rumoured payments system, which is in its early stages, will allow users to purchase Facebook “credits”, then use those credits to buy virtual goods from the third-party applications that run on the site, or from Facebook itself. – (Copyright 2009 The Financial Times Limited)
