Strong Jaguar Land Rover sales help push Tata back into profit

Last updated at 3:47 PM on 10th August 2010

Higher sales and improved profitability of its Jaguar and Land Rover brands helped Tata Motors post a quarterly profit, sending its shares up to their highest level in more than four years.
The company’s net profit for the second quarter was 19.9bn rupees, compared to a 3.3bn loss during the same quarter last year.

On the up: Tata plans to start assembling Land Rover vehicles in India

Tata sold 57,153 Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles during the period, up from 35,947 vehicles last year.
Chairman Ratan Tata recently said in the company’s annual report that it would widen its Jaguar cars portfolio, including an entry-level car, a station wagon and a roadster.
The company revealed plans to start assembling Land Rover vehicles in India from next year.
Tata also said that it is also in talks for an assembly line operation in China.

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Transocean profit hit by BP spill

4 August 2010 Last updated at 17:39 ET

Offshore drilling firm Transocean has seen quarterly profits drop due to legal costs and reduced income after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
It lost its rig in the April blowout, which also resulted in a reduction in drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, where Transocean had 14 other deepwater rigs.
Second-quarter net profit fell to $715m (£450m) from $806m a year earlier.
The profit includes $267m resulting from insurance recoveries associated with the loss of Deepwater Horizon.
That has helped towards costs of $69m associated with the well blow-out, and another $18m of expenses in other legal costs.
Leaving these items aside, Transocean earned $535m in the quarter.
Shares in Transocean and in Anadarko Petroleum, two firms which may face legal liabilities related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, rallied on Wednesday.
That came after the US government said almost three-quarters of the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico has been cleaned up or broken down and that efforts to cap the ruptured well showed promise.
Transocean is the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor with a fleet of 139 mobile offshore drilling units.
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Strong demand boosts Intel profit

13 July 2010
Last updated at 17:56 ET

US chipmaker Intel has reported bumper profits in what it describes as its “best” quarterly results.
Net profit came in at $2.9bn (£1.9bn) for the three months to 26 June, against a loss of $398m a year ago - a higher figure than analysts expected.
Revenue for the period was $10.8bn, as a result of what the company called “strong corporate demand”.
The firm also forecast improved revenues of $11.6bn for the three months to the end of September.
Intel shares jumped 5% in after-hours trading following the announcement.
Analysts were impressed by the results.
“The numbers just blew me away, I cannot see any mention of any problems whatsoever,” said Phani Saripella at Primary Global Research.
‘Strong season’
Intel is the second major US company to report its quarterly results following aluminium giant Alcoa on Monday, which also beat analysts’ expectations.
Some commentators now see these results as a sign of what is to come.
“In a quarter where people expected relatively strong performance, [Intel] beat that pretty handily and set a good forecast,” said Edward Snyder at Charter Equity Research.
“This going to be really good for a lot of other technology companies, particularly enterprise.
“It might be the case that this earnings period is so strong that it allays some of the fears about the broader economy.”

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Airbus maker EADS suffers 39% drop in profits

Last updated at 10:59 AM on 14th May 2010

Airbus parent company EADS on Friday reported that first quarter net profit fell 39 percent as its planemaker unit struggled with the ‘challenges’ of its A380 superjumbo program.Paris-based European Aeronautic Defence & Space Company said that net profit in the January to March period fell to €103million ($129million) from €170million a year earlier.Revenue fell 6 per cent to €9billion in the period, from €8.5billion in the first quarter a year ago, EADS said in a statement.

Airbus: Recent strengthening of the
dollar is good news for the company, which sells planes in dollars but
has most of its costs in euros

Airbus is struggling to ramp up production of the A380, the first of
which was delivered almost two years late to Singapore Airlines in 2007.
EADS also said its hedging position - contracts designed to lock in
currency rates and protect it from negative effects of foreign exchange
fluctuations - deteriorated, weighing on earnings.
But EADS CEO Louis Gallois said that the recent strengthening of the
dollar is good news for the company, which sells planes in dollars but
has most of its costs in euros.
‘EADS should benefit in the mid-and long-term if the dollar trend is confirmed,’ he said in a statement.
Overall, he said he is ‘cautiously optimistic that our industry is
slowly on its way back up,’ but recent market turmoil shows that ‘the
crisis is not yet fully behind us.’
Success for the year requires Airbus getting on top of three big aircraft projects.
That means mastering the ‘operational challenges’ of the A380,
finalizing contract changes with customer nations of the A400M military
transport plane - another troubled program - and ‘moving forward’ with
the A350 XWB widebody plane that Airbus is developing to compete with
Boeing Co.’s 787, Gallois said.
The revenue contribution from the A400M in the quarter was zero, EADS said.
EADS confirmed its 2010 outlook. Airbus expects gross orders between
250 and 300 planes in 2010 and to deliver the same number of aircraft
as in 2009.

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Highland Gold Mining seeks new acquisitions

Published: 1:14PM BST 30 Apr 2010

Highland swung to a net profit of $78.8m from a net loss of $232.4m in 2008,
after cutting costs and boosting production at a time of record-high gold
prices. It was also boosted by the $105m sale of its Mayskoye gold deposit
to Polymetal.

Full-year pre-tax profits increased 42pc to $63.5m on revenues of $164.7m.

Duncan Baxter, Highland’s non-executive chairman, said the company planned
this year to increase productivity at existing mines and review
opportunities to acquire assets in Russia and the Commonwealth of
Independent States.

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Goldman Sachs will not commit to future bonus cuts

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Goldman Sachs will not commit to cutting compensation, despite a surprise
reduction in pay for executives, including Lloyd Blankfein, the global head
of the bank.

The Wall Street bank paid Mr Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive a $9
million (£5.8 million) bonus in restricted stock for 2009, despite reporting
a record $13.4 billon net profit.

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Exxon Mobil sees drop in profits

US oil giant Exxon Mobil has reported a 23% drop in profits, but the result was better than many analysts had expected.Exxon made a net profit of $6.05bn (£3.8bn) in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with the $7.82bn it made in the same period in 2008. Weak demand for fuel in the global economic slowdown hurt the company’s refining business. In the whole of 2009, Exxon made a profit of £19.28bn, less than half of what it made in 2008. Shares in Exxon Mobil rose 1.9% to $65.67 when trading began in New York. Last week, Chevron reported a 37% drop in quarterly profit. Fellow oil giants BP and Royal Dutch Shell also have figures out later this week. Better productionExxon said exploration and capital spending rose by 4% in 2009. “Our financial strength provided us with the foundation to continue investing in new energy supplies to help meet global energy demand and to fuel economic growth,” said Exxon chairman Rex Tillerson. “Capital and exploration spending was $27.1bn in 2009, another record year, and in line with our longer-term plan.” Oil and gas production increased nearly 2% in the fourth quarter, which was better than some analysts had forecast, while revenues rose 6% to $89.84bn. “The two things I like to see drive an earnings beat are better production and better margins,” said Phil Weiss, oil analyst at Argus Research. “They certainly got the production.”

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Bank of America sees $194m loss

Wall Street giant Bank of America has reported a net loss of $194m (£120m) in the last three months of 2009.That compared with a loss of $1.8bn in the same period a year earlier. It added that it had repaid the $45bn government bail-out money it had received, but taking the impact of this into account, it made a loss of $5.2bn. Earlier this week, fellow US bank JP Morgan Chase reported a profit of $3.3bn, while Citigroup said it made a $7.6bn loss in the final quarter. For the whole of 2009, Bank of America made a net profit of $6.3bn, an increase on the $4bn profit it made in 2008. ‘Disappointing’ loss”While it’s disappointing to report a loss for the fourth quarter, there were a number of important accomplishments worth noting,” said chief executive Brian Moynihan. “First, we repaid the American taxpayer, with interest, for the Tarp [Troubled Asset Relief Program] investment. “Second, we have taken steps to strengthen our balance sheet through successful securities offerings. And third, all of our non-credit businesses recorded positive contributions to our results.” Bank of America received the Tarp money after agreeing to buy Merrill Lynch in September 2008 in a deal worth $50bn. The chief executive at the time, Ken Lewis, was widely criticised for going ahead with the purchase of Merrill, and he left the bank at the end of 2009. His successor, Mr Moynihan, was upbeat looking at the year ahead. “As we look at 2010, we are encouraged by signs the economy is improving, as we have seen in the stabilisation of our credit costs, particularly in the consumer businesses,” he said. “That said, economic conditions remain fragile and we expect high unemployment levels to continue, creating an ongoing drag on consumer spending and growth.”

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JP Morgan infuriates governments in U.S. and UK by paying out billions in bonuses

By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:14 PM on 15th January 2010

JP Morgan Chase angered politicians on both sides of the Atlantic today by revealing  a record pay bonanza for thousands of its investment bankers.The average £232,269 salary and bonus awards for last year are the most generous in the 115-year history of the Wall Street giant.It said it had put aside £5.7 billion to be paid to its 24,654 investment bankers around the world, of which 4,000 work in London.The staggering deals were revealed just hours after President Barack Obama attacked huge bank bonuses as ‘obscene’.The U.S. government’s tough stance has piled pressure on Gordon Brown to take a similarly robust position on bank bonuses.
Profits: Pedestrians walk past the JP Morgan Chase headquarters in New York as the company reported a big jump in net profit in the fourth quarter

JP Morgan Chase’s pays deals emerged as it revealed mega
profits of £7.18bn last year - more than double its
profit in 2008.
Dozens
of JP Morgan’s ‘Masters of the Universe’ employees will have received
at least £1million in pay and bonuses.
News of the massive bonuses triggered an angry response from
British politicians and union leaders who said there was ’something
fundamentally wrong’ when bankers could be paid so much so soon after
bringing the world economy to its knees.TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘These obscene bonuses paid so soon after the world’s taxpayers had to rescue the banking system show that there is something fundamentally wrong in the relationship between banking and the rest of the economy.’Banks are meant to support society, but instead taxpayers’ support guarantees that whatever happens to the economy banks will continue to pay gigantic bonuses.’The best way to reintegrate banks into society is to make sure they pay a proper contribution through a transaction tax - a solution rapidly gaining support both here and abroad.’
Although it was JP Morgan’s largest-ever ‘compensation’ pot, it
actually represented 33 per cent of its income, compared to 62 per cent
last year.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon at the Congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on Wednesday
In total the world’s biggest banks are expected to pay out about $100 billion (£61.3bn) in salaries and bonuses for last year.
Profits on Wall Street and in the City have been boosted by a loss
of competition after the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers
and by a massive increase in trading of Government debt issued to save
the world economy from a second Great Depression. 
JP Morgan Chase has emerged as one of the main winners from the
financial crisis, swallowing up failed rivals Bear Stearns and
Washington Mutual in 2008.
The bank took $25 billion (£15 billion) from the US Government at
the height of the meltdown - which it has since paid back - but avoided
the worst of the sub-prime meltdown and never posted a quarterly loss.
Chief executive Jamie Dimon however added that he remained ‘cautious’ over the outlook.
‘While we are seeing some stability in delinquencies, consumer
credit costs remain high, and weak employment and home prices persist,’
he said.The bank’s total revenue did fall below expectations and the company’s stock fell 78 cents to $43.91 in premarket trading.

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From bad to worse: Broken bank RBS lost another £2.2bn in last three months

By
Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 2:37 PM on 07th November 2009

Another 10,000 jobs at the state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland could be axed, its boss admitted yesterday. This adds to the almost 20,000 redundancies already been announced, and comes in the same week that the Government agreed to pay a further £33.5billion to keep the troubled bank afloat - bringing the total cost of the RBS bailout to more than £50billion.The bank has agreed to abide by government rules that none of its investment bankers will get a cash bonus.
Debt trap: RBS swung to a third-quarter net loss of £1.8 billion from a net profit of £871 million a year earlier
RBS boss Stephen Hester said he was ‘upbeat, though realistic’ about the bank‘s futureBut hundreds could get share packages worth millions of pounds. Some of the shares could be cashed in as early as next year. Accounts released yesterday suggest that its 20,000 investment bankers will earn an average of £152,000 each in pay and bonus for this year. Its high flyers will see their packagesrun into the millions. RBS chief executive-Stephen Hester defended the job cuts, arguing he needs to strip out costs to return the bank to profitability to pay back the Government for the bailout. But unions are incensed that the bank is causing further misery among employees by sacking workers in the run-up to Christmas. Mr Hester said yesterday that RBS was ‘well over half way through’ on what it had to do on jobs, suggesting there could be as many as 15,000 further cuts in the pipeline. He refused to deny thousands more jobs could go, saying only: ‘I have been adamant that the first people to hear are my staff.’ The RBS accounts revealed that the bank lost £1.5billion in the third quarter of this year, compared with a £2.3billion profit in the same period a year ago.

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