Category: News Desk

European Companies More Averse To M&As in 2012 – Survey


European companies are less likely to engage in large merger and acquisition deals next year as compared to 2011, according to survey results published by UBS and Boston Consulting Group on Thursday.

 

The findings draw on the responses of 148 CEOs and senior managers from publicly listed companies in Europe. In its report, 46 percent of the respondents said that they would not, or were very unlikely to, pursue a firm with more than 500 million euros ($665.6 million) in sales – up from 41 percent last year.

Till Debt Do Us Part: Rise in Divorces Linked to Recession


The number of divorces in England and Wales has risen for the first time since 2003, a 5 percent increase in 2010, leading some experts to suggest that the recession and economic turmoil could be at fault.

Japan Admits Using $29 Million From Disaster Fund For Whaling Hunt


Japan will use 2.3 billion yen ($29 million) from its supplementary tsunami relief budget to fund the country’s controversial annual whaling hunt in the Antarctic Ocean, confirmed an official from the Japanese Fisheries Agency on Wednesday.

Shale Gas Discovered In China Could Exceed US Output


 China’s discovery of shale gas in its Eastern Sichuan province on December 6th this year could represent a drastic shift for the nation’s energy policies, said the chairman of the country’s second-largest oil company, Sinopec, at the World Petroleum Congress on Wednesday.

Infographic: Let’s Google It! – How to Refine Your Google Search


With technology advancing as quick as it does, we sometimes forget the simple things that brought us here. To educate the students of tomorrow, we’ve got to continually remember the basic, but crucial tips of one of the biggest tech giant in our day has to offer – so get more out of Google.

If you have found yourself unable to find what you were searching for on the web, or if you received too many unrelated results – chances are, you may only have to refine your Google search.

Americans Spending More on Credit, Taking on Higher Debt


 

U.S. consumer credit rose for the second consecutive month in October – a month marked by Thanksgiving shopping and precedes Christmas spending – a sign that Americans are taking on more debt to pay for their purchases.

Merkel-Sarkozy Writes Open Letter To EU President For Treaty Overhaul


French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have submitted a joint letter to European Union President Herman Van Rompuy, in which the pair called for changes to be made to EU treaties so as to allow for tighter rules on deficit spending as well as for centralised governance of national budgets.

The decision to amend the treaties must be made by the end of the upcoming EU summit, said the letter, adding that the new measures must be ready for implementation by March 2012.

Infographic: Are Corporations People, or Sociopaths?


The pro-business line “Corporations are people” rings in many ears. If this is so true, what type of person would they be? This infographic highlights the angle and tendencies of which may make them sociopaths or psychopaths.

Many are familiar with the “Corporations are people” rhetoric used to support the case for business-friendly policies. By attributing human life-like qualities to corporations and other big institutions, corporate personhood allows corporations to have the rights and responsibilities similar to legal persons.

Ireland’s Painful 2012 Budget: 23 % VAT, €3.5bn in Spending Cuts


Ireland’s finance minister Michael Noonan has unveiled the country’s 2012 austerity budget. In order to qualify for continuing IMF-EU loans, the painful budget saw taxes increase by a further 2 percent and included a deep spending cut.

The Irish government on Monday announced a total of €3.5 billion in budget savings. In his address to parliament, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said the budget was necessary to protect the “long-term and strategic interests of the state and its citizens.”

No Sign Of Yakuza Involvement In Olympus Scandal: Panel Report


An investigative panel, led by a former Supreme Court judge, has uncovered no evidence of any involvement by organised crime groups in Olympus’s years-long cover-up of investment losses, with its report describing Olympus’s management as just being “rotten to the core.”

In its report issued on Tuesday, the company-commissioned panel found that Olympus executives had broken multiple Japanese laws for nearly two decades in order to investment losses of up to $1.67 billion.