NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar is still the most important world currency, Standard & Poor's said on Thursday, but added that rising levels of U.S. debt and dependence on foreigners to finance much of pose risks to the currency's primacy.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury's decision against a bankruptcy restructuring for GMAC may have increased taxpayer bailout costs for the auto finance company and made it less viable, an oversight group said on Thursday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate on Wednesday passed a $149 billion package of jobless aid and tax breaks, as Democrats continued efforts to lower the 9.7 percent unemployment rate before congressional elections in November.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian stocks fell on Thursday as investors fretted over tighter monetary policy in China on the back of strong loan growth and quickening inflation, while the yen struggled amid signs that Japan's economy may need more support.
Union leaders representing British Airways cabin crew will meet later to decide whether to announce dates for a strike.
When former in-house defense attorney Dimitrios Biller resigned from his top post at Toyota, he walked out with something potentially more valuable than his nearly $4 million severance package.
Forbes magazine released its annual list of the world's richest people, and for only the second time since 1995, Microsoft founder Bill Gates' name was not first.
Mexican Carlos Slim Huan overtakes Bill Gates as the world's richest man, according to the Forbes 'rich list'.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Macquarie Group Ltd , Australia's largest investment bank, wants to add more bankers in the United States to advise energy, industrial and technology companies, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing an interview with a top company executive.
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - General Motors Co will pay back roughly $8 billion in debt to the United States and Canada before June and could go public in a way that would allow taxpayers to make a profit on the bailout, Chief Executive Ed Whitacre said on Wednesday.
The Pentagon is training people to hack into its own computer networks.
Insurers paid out £650m from 335,000 claims made as a result of damage caused by the wintry weather in the UK.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - While James Cameron's 3D sci-fi epic "Avatar" took the box office by storm instantly, the road to success will be much longer for Best Buy Co Inc, which is making a big bet on 3D televisions this year.
Brazil exploits potential as web use spreads
If you are a young fund manager who takes pride in your entrepreneurial approach, then Alain Grisay may be someone you want to talk to. More to the point, the chief executive of F&C Asset Management may be very keen to talk to you.
So Standard Life?s frontier growth market is ... the UK. David Nish used his maiden outing as chief executive to describe why a life and pensions market that competitors see as ex-growth is full of potential. Prudential wants to be bigger in Asia, Aviva says the future is in Europe, but Standard Life is happy to stay at home.
Yesterday the Prime Minister scared the nation, this time on purpose. He reminded us that, in just over six months in 2008, the equivalent of nearly four years of economic growth vanished. Global trade fell by 40 per cent. In the 18 months after the credit crunch, stock markets halved in value. Mr Brown?s Government was forced to act in a manner out of the wildest dreams of Michael Foot ? nationalising a building society and using £50 billion of public money to buy majority control of two of the world?s largest banks (see page 11).
It is a retailer, on impossibly low margins, with falling sales, hopelessly nailed to the health of the global economy, refinanced by a deeply discounted rights issue last year ? and it isn?t paying a dividend. So, would you buy a used share certificate from Inchcape?
For sheer brazen cheek, George Papandreou should be given a prize. The Greek Prime Minister is in the United States for meetings with President Obama and his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. He wants support, not a big wad of cash, to rescue the floundering Greek economy. He is stirring up a hate campaign, banging the drum against market speculators, whom he says are conspiring against Greece.
James Murdoch yesterday reiterated News Corporation?s tough attitude towards Google, repeating the threat made by his father to withdraw the company?s content from the search engine giant.
Google is broadening its assault on Microsoft?s dominance of business software by launching an online marketplace for other companies? products.
The future of EMI looked even more parlous yesterday when it parted company with its chief executive amid suggestions that several of its biggest acts were considering jumping ship.
Northern Rock?s boss yesterday defended the decision to pay staff almost £15 million in bonuses despite the state-owned bank?s loss of more than £250 million last year.
Banks, insurers and investment companies will have new products scrutinised as they are developed, under a tough regime being formulated by the Financial Services Authority.
A former partner at Cazenove was convicted of insider dealing yesterday after making more than £100,000 profit from trading ahead of three takeovers.
The boom in school and hospital building is over and the future of civil engineering is nuclear, according to Costain, the engineering and construction group.
Shares in Tullett Prebon jumped almost 26 per cent as the inter-dealer broker (IDB) said that it was in the sights of a predator. At yesterday?s 390p closing price, the company, run by Terry Smith, is worth £840 million.
London Underground must find an extra £460 million to finance the upgrade of the Northern and Piccadilly lines.
Roy Stanley, the former chairman of Tanfield Group, is orchestrating an unusual plan to take over the company?s main electric vehicles division in a £70 million conditional proposal that sent its shares racing 46 per cent higher.
BP has emerged as a front-runner to buy $5 billion ($£3.3 billion) of oil assets from Devon Energy, the independent US oil and gas producer.
The City watchdog has sounded alarm about the prospect of a meltdown in commercial property. Announcing much tougher stress tests for banks, the Financial Services Authority raised concerns that they are not setting aside enough to cover losses on the sector.
The High Court yesterday ordered three people to pay damages after they fronted an internet events company that failed to provide a single ticket to the Beijing Olympics, despite clients paying millions of pounds. The deception meant that the British swimmer Rebecca Adlington's parents nearly missed seeing their daughter claim gold.
At last, someone who is prepared to show bankers some kindness. The Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square is showing Michael Moore's documentary Capitalism: A Love Story next week and is so concerned about the plight of our poor City folk that the first 50 bankers at each screening can get it in for free.
Britain's banks are to be ordered to disclose more details of their highest earners' pay.
A former Cazenove banker will return to Southwark Crown Court in London today to be sentenced, after being convicted yesterday on five counts of insider dealing.
Northern Rock, the state-owned bank, said yesterday it would pay its staff £14.9m in bonuses after reducing its annual losses by more than £1bn.
With Gordon Brown yesterday having set 24 March as Budget Day, it's a little late to be offering this advice, but here goes anyway: let's not bother with a Budget this side of the general election at all.
Glencore, the secretive Swiss commodities trader, yesterday insisted that its 2009 results were "credible" despite profits falling by 43 per cent.
The row over funding for the London Tube upgrade switched to a new, but equally incendiary tack yesterday after the independent Arbiter settled the value of the next slug of work at £4.46bn and immediately faced a threat of a legal challenge from Transport for London (TfL).
The waste management group Shanks attempted a comeback as bargain hunters piled in last night.
British Airways' concessions to Europe's competition watchdog over its proposed tie-up with American Airlines (AA) were derided by Sir Richard Branson as "woefully inadequate" yesterday.
Even being bombed five times during the Blitz didn't stop staff keeping Hamleys' store on London's Regent Street open throughout the Second World War. They just donned tin hats.
Toyota, the embattled Japanese car-maker that has been embroiled in a row over the safety of its vehicles in recent weeks, yesterday said that employees at its factories in north Wales and Derbyshire were set to return to full-time working.
EMI Music's chief executive has shocked the market by quitting weeks before the group was due to draw up a growth plan critical to its future. The beleaguered music label has appointed the former ITV chief executive Charles Allen to replace him.
From basket case to buyer. Less than two years ago, almost everyone assumed that Barclays would join Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group in taking a bailout from the Government. Having avoided that fate, its recovery has been so strong that City gossips now take very seriously talk that Barclays is planning a major acquisition in the US retail banking sector.
Though you wouldn't think it from the hysterical warnings we have been hearing of late about the dangers of a credit rating downgrade, the UK has a little time to get its finances in order. And one of the chief reasons for this is that even though our borrowing is high, we have relatively little debt to roll over in the next few years ? the average maturity of gilts, at around 13 to 14 years, is significantly higher than for the bonds of most other governments.
The extra ordinary life of the man from the Pru
Why intellectual property is not a luxury
The Independent could be free under a new owner