By Ian Fraser Published: Sunday Herald Date: October 30th, 2005 THIS is the Scottish banks’ bridge into Europe. As the La Risle viaduct in northwestern France (pictured right) carried its first cars and lorries high above the valley of the river Risle last Thursday morning, so have PPP deals along these lines involving the Bank […]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald October 30th, 2005 DEAL OF THE WEEK IMAGINE what would happen if one of France or America’s proudest corporate names were to be taken over by an overseas competitor. Loud cries for government intervention would probably be heard resonating up and down the Champs Elysees or Pennsylvania Avenue. Unions would […]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald October 23rd, 2005 Review of: Oilwork: The North Sea Diaries, by Sue Jane Taylor (Birlinn, £14.99) FOR a brief decade from 1973, it looked like the North Sea oil boom might transform the UK economy. Black gold was being pumped out of the continental shelf in ever increasing quantities, creating […]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald October 9th, 2005 PAUL Myners, the Marks & Spencer chairman who led a Treasury review of institutional investment, has warned that companies’ traditional means of fighting off takeovers are redundant because of the pressures of hedge-fund investors in the UK market. He said he was “shocked” to discover that M&S’s […]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald October 2nd, 2005 DEAL OF THE WEEK THE topsy-turvy world of Russian capitalism came into sharp relief last week after Chelsea supremo Roman Abramovich’s investment vehicle Millhouse Capital sold a 72.7 per cent stake in Russian oil major Sibneft to the state-controlled monopoly, Gazprom. The $13.1 billion (£7.43bn) deal, the […]