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    India’s railways puff slowly to private sector reform

    Tentative reforms and some eye-catching projects could herald a private sector-driven shake-up of India’s creaking railways, but deeper change is needed to tackle the supply bottlenecks that still crimp growth. Once seen as a shining legacy of the British Raj and still one of the world’s biggest employers, India’s rail network crams 18 million people a day on to its ageing trains running from the foothills of the Himalayas to the southern beaches of Kerala. Decades of low investment and policy stagnation mean India has fallen far behind emerging market peer China in building a network fit for Asia’s third-largest economy. Contrasts ab...
    On February 11, 2011 / By
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    EU to present draft law curbing auditors

    Auditing firms in the European Union face more competition and curbs on their activities to restore their “tarnished” image, the bloc’s financial services chief has announced. “One can no longer say ‘move on, there is nothing to see’ on audit issues,” EU Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier told a webstreamed hearing on auditing in Brussels. “I shall make suggestions with the aim of presenting a proposal for a directive in November,” Barnier said. The sector is dominated by the “Big Four” – KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young and PriceWaterhouseCoopers – who check the books of most blue-chip companies across th...
    On February 10, 2011 / By
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    LSE to buy Toronto bourse making $4trn exchange

    The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is to buy Canada’s TMX to claw back lost market share and create the world’s fourth-largest bourse trading $4.1trn of stock a year. Shares in the LSE, first established in 1698, jumped nine percent as markets welcomed the all-share deal, and indicating a per share valuation for TMX of C$46.7, up 16 percent. The deal would create the number one global centre of mining and energy stock trading and values the Toronto group at about $3.2bn. “The deal looks like a defensive looking merger of equals driven by competitive pressures … and geographical constraints i.e. the need to attract more international busi...
    On February 9, 2011 / By
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    Xstrata year profit up 86%, outlook positive

    Miner Xstrata reported a better-than-expected 86 percent jump in annual profit on stronger commodity prices and gave a positive outlook for 2011. The Anglo-Swiss miner said it was still assessing the impact on this year’s results from the recent flooding and cyclones in Queensland – where it has coal, copper and zinc operations – after it was forced to close some mines in the Australian state. “As we stand at the moment we don’t see any significant impact on 2011 results,” Chief Executive Mick Davis told reporters. Xstrata, the fifth-biggest diversified miner by market capitalisation, said the full impact would partly depend on th...
    On February 8, 2011 / By
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    McBride warns of second wave of material cost rises

    A second wave of commodity price increases and a deteriorating British grocery market will hit profits at cleaning products maker McBride, it said on February 7, sending its shares to a 24-week low. McBride, Europe’s biggest maker of own-brand household cleaning products for retailers, said a surge in the price of plastics and vegetable oils in recent weeks could add around £7m to its costs in the second half of its fiscal year, after an “£8m hit in the first half. “In recent weeks, we’ve seen a second wave coming … an additional raw material spike which we will have to deal with,” chief executive Chris Bull told reporters. A su...
    On February 8, 2011 / By
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    Obama tries to woo business, slams ‘burdensome’ tax

    President Barack Obama stepped up efforts to woo the US business community on February 7, seeking its help to tackle “burdensome” corporate taxes in a speech to a business group that has long been a fierce critic. Obama, on a drive to win over business and independent voters before the 2012 presidential election, also repeated a promise to advance trade deals with Panama and Colombia that would help US companies, but he did not lay out a timetable for getting the pacts passed. “I understand the challenges you face. I understand you are under incredible pressure to cut costs and keep your margins up. I understand the significance of your...
    On February 8, 2011 / By
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    UBS sees strong increase in new money in 2011

    UBS said it expects to win back more money from clients in 2011 and has laid the foundations for a rebound in its investment bank as chief Oswald Gruebel turns around a bank almost felled by the crisis. UBS said it had seen improvement across all its businesses in the fourth quarter – with total net new money of 7.1 billion Swiss francs – although inflows were “very small” at its core wealth management unit after 1 billion in the third quarter. “We are optimistic that overall positive net new money inflows will continue in the first quarter. For the full year, we believe that net new money will strengthen noticeably,” UBS said in ...
    On February 8, 2011 / By
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    WTO report said to condemn Boeing subsidies

    Plane maker Boeing received unfair subsidies from the US government, a World Trade Organisation report said recently, according to Boeing’s European rival Airbus. The two companies disagreed over the extent of the subsidies outlined in the report, which was delivered to the US government and the EU Commission but not released publicly. Airbus said the report showed Boeing had received at least $5bn in illegal subsidies and was only able to launch its 787 Dreamliner with such support. Boeing denied the assertions. The US and EU, both trading superpowers, have been fighting cases against each other in the WTO for more than six years over each...
    On February 8, 2011 / By
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    Debt brake may be one German export too many

    As Berlin presses its eurozone partners to introduce tough German-style deficit rules, first cracks are emerging in the country’s own commitment to the “debt brake” law it holds up as a model for others. Chancellor Angela Merkel is pushing other European countries to enshrine binding rules based on the German legislation in their constitutions as part of a new anti-crisis package meant to overcome the currency bloc’s debt crisis. The German law forces the federal and state governments to virtually eliminate their structural budget deficits over the next five to 10 years. Already eurozone members such as France and Spain have expressed...
    On February 8, 2011 / By
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    After the Great Recession, the Great Regression?

    Wages, pensions, unemployment insurance, welfare benefits and collective bargaining are under attack in many areas as governments struggle to reduce debts swollen partly by the cost of rescuing banks during the global financial crisis. The EU, which long trumpeted a European social model with a generous welfare state, social partnership between unions and employers and a work-life balance featuring limited working hours and long paid holidays, has lost its swagger. “The prevailing philosophy is that people have been paying themselves too much in some countries and we should be more like Germany, where people didn’t get a real pay raise fo...
    On February 8, 2011 / By