A hint of something fishy in the air? Iceland freezes threat to UK over assets

February 25th, 2009 by admin | Filed under Daily News, Recession, UK Bank Accounts, World Banks.

There must have been sighs of relief all over Whitehall yesterday on the news that the freshly elected Icelandic government had announced their decision to take the UK government to the European Court of Human Rights, For those of you where were unaware of this threat hovering over the UK, Reykjavik had complained to the court over the UK government’s threat to apply their anti-terror laws to freeze Icelandic assets in Britain. The good news that the complaint had been dropped even put a smile on Gordon Brown’s face but only for about half a minute.

In Dublin yesterday, anti-fraud officers raided the headquarters of Anglo Irish Bank. The officers are carrying out an investigation into alleged breaches of company law at the recently nationalized bank in conjunction with the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, a government-appointed watchdog body.

On the Stock market the Indian infrastructure fund sector of 3i’s, UK’s oldest private equity group announced preliminary details of their intended £112million investment in a deep-water port on India’s east coast. This is the first investment to be made by the private equity group since the appointment of new senior management in January. Experts point out that the investment is especially important as it has been made while 3i fight to cut their crippling £2.1billion debt burden. Despite the positive news, concerns over the company’s significant debt levels pushed their shares (5 pence to 197).

Despite an increased final dividend, increases in sales and profits for 2008, shares in Spectris the precision instrument and controls maker announced that they were less optimistic about 2009. The company raised their dividend to 23.4 pence per share.

Two UK advertising giants are to become slightly intertwined with the news that Matthew Freud has acquired a 3.3 per cent foothold in M&C Saatchi the leading UK advertising agency.

The London-based money manager, the Ashore Group Plc whose focus is on emerging markets is scheduled to report earnings on the FTSE on Wednesday. Signs of nervousness abounded as their shares slipped a monster 14 percent (16.25 pence 100.75).

AstraZeneca Plc , U.K.’s second-biggest drug maker saw their shares fall 2.8 percent (70 pence to 2,393). AstraZeneca are currently facing around 15,000 consumer claims that allege that Seroquel their antipsychotic drug has been reckoned to causes diabetes, the fall in share value began after the company lost their bid to have a lawsuit dismissed in the US.

The financial news and data provider Thomson Reuters Corp. is scheduled to report earnings today for 2008. One the supposition that they know something that we don’t, their shares dropped a token one percent. (13 pence to 1,322)

On a battle weary FTSE, U.K. stocks recorded losses for the third day, with the insurers and commodity producers showing the largest fall, with the market unable to dispel the feeling that the recession will continue to deepen. .

The FTSE 100 Index dropped 0.9 percent (34.29 to 3,816.44) with around three-quarters of the FTSE 100 members ending with losses. Also the FTSE 250 index dropped by 0.2% (13.59 points to 5,905.75.)

Sterling rose slightly against the dollar and the Euro and remained stable against the rising Japanese Yen and the Swiss Franc:

Pound/US dollar 1.4482
Pound/Euro 1.2839
Pound/Japanese Yen 124.49
Pound/Swiss Franc 1.4873

Wall Street shares had a very good day on trading on news that bank nationalisation still remains far off.

The Dow Jones Average rose 236.16. to close at 7350.94. Nasdaq also recovered by 54.11 points to close at 1441.83

Reports that at Merrill Lynch the investment bank acquired by Bank of America on January 2009 ineffective internal caused the firm to understate its 2008 losses by more than $500m caused a few tremors.

The bank who disclosed last month that they made a $15.3billion loss in their fourth quarter trading and full-year losses of $27.1billion for 2008, revised their figures downwards to a loss of $27.6billion.