Hermès bags sales rise of 16 per cent

The City isn’t known for penny-pinching, but news that a mining company was taking control of spending, slashing bosses’ pay and culling the number of executives sent it to the top of the mid-tier index.

Glencore Xstrata put its $5 billion (£3 billion) Las Bambas copper project up for sale today to meet a crucial condition of being allowed to form the wheat-trading-to-coal-mining empire.

A better-than-expected US jobs report pushed the dollar up, which in turn melted metal prices yesterday and miners ended up buried at the bottom of the blue-chip index.

Diamonds are forever for mining giant Rio Tinto, which today scrapped plans to sell or float its  $2 billion (£1.3 billion)  precious stones division.

In profit...

The changing of the guard continued in the FTSE 100 mining industry as Rio Tinto appointed Chris Lynch, a former finance head at BHP Billiton, as its chief financial officer.

BHP Billiton became the third of the FTSE 100 global mining giants to change its chief executive in as many months as the industry braces itself for a long period of sluggish resources prices.

The boss of mining giant Rio Tinto was ousted today after the company disclosed a near £9 billion charge relating to two major acquisitions.

Shareholders in Glencore and Xstrata were in jubilant form yesterday after Europe gave the green light to their plans for a £56bn mega-merger, in a decision which means the deal is now as good as done.

Harry Winston, the luxury jeweller with outlets in Harrods and in Bond Street, is expanding the mining side of its business after paying BHP Billiton $500m (£315m) for a controlling stake in a Canadian diamond mine.

Even for a man with more than £300m to burn, stockbroker Nicholas Levene’s life was marked by years of staggering excess.

Investment View: Cynthia Carroll didn't do such a bad job in an extremely difficult situation

Avanti shares dip 19% after losses