Other finance news in brief
Oil price drops below $144 a barrel
Oil dropped below $144 a barrel but was still within sight of record highs reached in the previous session when traders bought into the market ahead of a holiday weekend in the US.
US crude oil was down $1.44 at $143.85 a barrel by 17.00 GMT, below an all-time high of $145.85 on Thursday. The contract has risen more than 50 per cent this year.
London Brent was down $1.66 at $144.42.
Prices fell more than $1 after Iran announced it would respond yesterday to proposals from six world powers to try to resolve the dispute over its nuclear development programme.
It subsequently handed its response to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, but did not give details of its contents. - ( Reuters)
19% rise in Ryanair passengers
Ryanair said June passenger numbers rose 19 per cent on the back of new routes. Some 5.17 million passengers travelled with the airline last month compared with 4.35 million a year earlier.
The load factor, or proportion of seats filled, fell one percentage point to 84 per cent.
Ryanair aims to expand even as it tries to deal with record oil prices and slowing consumer spending. It started new routes last month including nine services from Birmingham, England.
"Perhaps we are beginning to see signs of the consumer trading down to lower fares as they become more price-sensitive," said Eamonn Hughes, an analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers.
Ryanair shares have fallen 44 per cent in Dublin trading this year, in part because the airline is largely unhedged against rising oil prices. - (Bloomberg)
Société Générale fined 4m
Société Générale, the French bank stung by a record trading loss, was fined €4 million by the country's banking commission for failing to comply with rules on internal controls.
The Paris-based bank's internal checks showed "serious shortcomings, going far beyond simple repeated individual errors", the commission said.
The fact that management was unaware of these shortcomings could not be used as an excuse for failing to meet regulations, it said.
A report commissioned by Société Générale found that trader Jérôme Kerviel was able to build up €50 billion in unauthorised futures positions because of "fragmented" internal controls. Unwinding those positions cost a record €4.9 billion. - (Bloomberg)
Bradford Bingley to raise rights issue
Bradford Bingley (BB) plans to increase its rights issue to £400 million (€505 million) after US private equity firm TPG Capital pulled out of a plan to buy a stake, sending its shares lower.
TPG pulled out after ratings agency Moody's cut BB's debt ratings, triggering a clause allowing TPG to terminate the agreement, BB said yesterday.
BB, Britain's biggest buy-to-let lender, had planned to sell TPG a 23 per cent stake for £179 million and raise £258 million through a rights issue.
It said it would now seek to raise a net £400 million through the rights issue.
Its shares fell 7.4 per cent to 56.5p after falling as low as 52p - below the rights issue price of 55p.
UBS to post small loss 'at worst'
Battered Swiss bank UBS expects to post at worst a small loss in the second quarter as a three billion Swiss franc (€1.87 billion) tax credit offset further investment banking losses.
"The results reflect positive contributions from global wealth management and business banking and from global asset management, offset by a loss in the investment bank," UBS said. Analysts had expected a second-quarter loss of up to five billion Swiss francs.
