Prudential plans £15bn Asia deal

Prudential looks set to buy one of Asia’s biggest insurance firms in a £15bn deal, the BBC understands.The UK insurance giant is believed to be in advanced talks to takeover AIA, the Asian arm of US company AIG. Prudential has refused to confirm the huge deal, but the company is expected to issue a statement to the market next week. BBC correspondent Joe Lynam said the move looks like an attempt to tap into the Indian and Chinese markets. “This is a play for the middle classes of India and China as they grow in wealth and numbers in the coming years. The sums involved range up to $25bn, which could make it the biggest overseas purchase by a UK firm,” he added. AIA is regarded as a crucial part of AIG with about 20 million customers, or close to a third of AIG’s total customer base. AIG was bailed out by the US government in 2008 and is now 80% owned by it. In total, the firm has received $182.5bn of government funding.

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Noble Foods to get just desserts in £35m deal for Gü

Gü, the premium pudding maker, was on the brink of being sold last night for
up to £35 million.

Noble Foods, the egg producer and dessert manufacturer, is expected to
announce its purchase as soon as today. Negotiations were continuing last
night, but insiders said that a deal was “imminent”. Gü was founded in 2003
by James Averdieck with £100,000 in seed capital. He stands to earn a
windfall from the deal.

Noble is thought to have seen off competition from Change Capital Partners,
the private equity group that counts Luc Vandevelde and Roger Holmes, former
bosses of Marks & Spencer, among its partners.

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Bolland looks East to rebuild the fortunes of M&S

By Lawrie Holmes

Published: 11:00PM GMT 21 Nov 2009

According to sources close to the former head of supermarket group Morrisons,
Mr Bolland will use his international experience at Dutch drinks group
Heineken, for whom he worked for 20 years, to seek opportunities in the Far
East. In its last annual report M&S declared its interest in growing
international business from 9pc of total revenues to up to 20pc by 2012.
Last year international sales rose 25.9pc to £897.8m from 300 overseas
stores in 41 countries. This compares to a similar number that rival H&M
trades in and around 70 countries in which Inditex, owner of the Zara brand,
operates.

An industry analyst said: “To be a great national retailer you need to be
international. [Chairman] Sir Stuart Rose has always been of the view that
international growth will be back on the agenda.”

Kate Calvert, a retail analyst at Shore capital, said: “There is an
opportunity to take the M&S brand overseas, but I’d be frightened if he
expands overseas if he hasn’t sorted out the infrastructure first.” She
added that one of Mr Bolland’s challenges will be to upgrade the supply
chain of M&S, which is being addressed by an initiative launched two
months ago.

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Falling revenue forces Vodafone to extend cost cuts

Vodafone is to double its cost-cutting plan to save a further £1 billion over
the next two years.

The mobile phone group expects to complete its initial £1 billion cost-cutting
a year early and has decided to expand the programme to counter a continued
slowdown in revenue growth.

Vodafone expects that about half of the new savings will offset declining
prices and regulatory action, while the other £500 million has been
earmarked for bolstering margins and investing in growth opportunities.

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Port bills reignite prepackage row

By Alistair Osborne

Published: 9:50PM BST 15 Aug 2009

Leonard Curtis, a business rescue and recovery practitioner, has written to
port companies that have been hit by a Government agency’s imposition of
backdated bills that are estimated to top £200m across the industry. The
liability, imposed by the Valuation Office Agency, an offshoot of HM Revenue
and Customs, has left some companies technically insolvent.

The letter dated August 5 from Mark Colman, a manager at Leonard Curtis,
relates how the firm “recently dealt with a port-based business which
received a retrospective rating bill that it couldn’t afford to pay.

“As the business was technically insolvent because of the inability to
discharge the rating bill, we received an instruction from the directors to
place the company into administration,” he wrote.

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Banned director runs loan firm

By Samantha Washington
BBC Radio 4′s Money Box and BBC Radio 5 Live’s Donal MacIntyre

<img width=’285′ src=”http://perspicacious.co.uk/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/5c330__45781897_-40.jpg” align=”left” width=”203″ height=”152″ alt=”The Yes loans website” border=”0″ vspace=”4″ hspace=”4″ />

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Off key: Lift music firm Muzak files for bankruptcy

Muzak Holdings, the US company known for providing background music in lifts, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Muzak made the move after missing a $105m (£74m) payment to creditors. Read more

Festive trade cheers Sainsbury’s

Sainsbury’s has said it has just had its “best ever Christmas performance”, as its sales rose for the last three months of 2008.

Reporting its results for the 13 weeks to 3 January, the supermarket group saw like-for-like sales excluding petrol rise 4.5% from a year earlier. Read more

HP’s profits exceed expectations

The world’s biggest PC maker, Hewlett-Packard (HP), has beaten forecasts by posting a better-than-expected net profit in the fourth quarter.

HP said it made a $1.03 (£0.68) net profit per share excluding charges, 3% higher than the Wall Street analysts expected. Read more