The Business Matrix: Wednesday 6 April 2011

Kingfisher boss sells £1.6m shares

Kingfisher’s chief executive Ian Cheshire has sold £1.6m worth of shares to cover a tax bill. He also transferred £250,000 worth of shares in the B&Q owner to his wife. The shares formed half of an incentive award dating from 2008, which he exercised on Monday.

Bank chief warns over Portugal’s debt

Ricardo Salgado, the head of Banco Espirito Santo, Portugal’s second-largest listed bank, has warned the country’s banks cannot lend any more to the state. Speaking on television, he called on Portugal to seek a loan to calm market fears before elections in June.

Ferreira replaces Agnelli at Vale

Brazil’s Vale has named Murilo Ferreira as chief executive, replacing Roger Agnelli, whose relationship with the government soured amid claims the mining giant was failing to invest enough in the country. The state holds direct and indirect stakes in Vale.

Yunus loses dismissal appeal

Bangladesh’s highest court has rejected an appeal by the 70-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus against his dismissal as managing director of Grameen, the microlender he founded. The official retirement age for MDs of banks in Bangladesh is 60.

Larsson publisher hits record profits

The success of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy drove Quercus to record results in 2010, allowing the British publisher to announce its maiden dividend. Quercus’s profits surged from £900,000 in 2009 to £7.5m last year as revenues rose from £19.1m to £32m.

Christmas cheer for Park hampers

Christmas hampers firm Park has reported a 5 per cent surge in savings for the festive season amid signs the financial gloom was causing customers of the Liverpool-based firm to set aside more money.

Amlin prepares for disaster losses

Amlin warned natural disasters could cost it as much as £275m in its first quarter, including a £150m hit from the Japanese earthquake. The biggest listed insurer operating in the Lloyd’s of London market provisionally estimated its Japanese quake loss at between £80m and £150m, based on a total industry loss of up to $25bn. The quake that hit New Zealand in February could cost it £110m, and the Queensland floods £15m.

Apple crunched by Nasdaq move

Nasdaq OMX is to rebalance its benchmark Nasdaq 100 index, cutting the weighting of widely held stocks, such as the iPhone maker, Apple, to bring them more in line with market values. After the rebalancing next month by the US exchange operator, Apple is to account for 12 per cent of the index, rather than 20 per cent, meaning moves in its shares will not affect the Nasdaq 100 so much. Microsoft will rise to 4.9 per cent.

Nuclear review to delay reactors

Britain’s nuclear safety review in response to the Japanese nuclear crisis will delay interim approvals for the next generation of reactors in England by at least three months, the UK’s nuclear regulator said yesterday. The Health and Safety Executive had hoped to grant interim design acceptances for reactors from Toshiba’s Westinghouse and French partners EDF and Areva in June.

Brussels looks at executive pay rules

Company managers may have to put their pay packets to a shareholder vote and introduce a quota for women executives under new proposals from Brussels. The European Commission proposal, now open for public comment, also limits jobs for non-executive directors. Pay voting practice varies across Europe. In Germany, shareholders do not get a specific vote on pay, but they do in Britain.

Wells Fargo fined $11m for CDOs

Wells Fargo Securities has become the second Wall Street firm to settle with regulators over its sale of the toxic “CDO” mortgage derivatives at the heart of the credit crisis. The investment bank, formerly known as Wachovia, will pay a $11m fine. Last year, Goldman Sachs paid $550m to settle fraud charges over one of its CDOs.

Merlin conjures no change thus far

More than three-quarters of small businesses have seen no change in the approach by banks to lending since the Project Merlin agreement in February. The poll, by HotFrog, of more than 500 firms, also found that 70 per cent said they would expand their businesses if they had more funding, and most would take on more staff.

Royal wedding to hit growth

The royal wedding is expected to knock economic growth, despite an expected boost to retail and tourism. The extra bank holiday could result in a 0.25 per cent drop in second-quarter growth, analysts at Investec said. Accountants at RSM Tenon, meanwhile, warned that British firms lose £6bn in productivity for each bank holiday.

UK is G7 laggard, says the OECD

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development believes the UK’s economy will grow more slowly over the next quarter than that of any other G7 country apart from catastrophe-stricken Japan. The OECD estimates the UK economy will grow by 1 per cent in the second quarter of 2011. MORE