document.writeln("

LSE rejects US$2.6bn offer from Macquarie Bank
London: The 307-year-old London Stock Exchange Plc has rejected as ``derisory'' a US$2.6bn takeover offer from Macquarie Bank Ltd., Australia's biggest investment bank.

Sydney based, Macquarie Bank's offer of 580 pence a share in cash for the London market, which was less than yesterday's closing price of 612 pence, was rejected as being a bid that ``fundamentally undervalues the company.''

Earlier the London Stock Exchange had also rejected a takeover proposal from Deutsche Boerse AG as being too low. Over the last year the market has also been in talks with Euronext NV, owner of the Paris and Amsterdam stock exchanges, which has yet to make a bid.

Macquarie asked for more financial information from the London exchange, and said that since expressing interest in the market on Aug. 15 ``constant speculation has supported the LSE's share price above any level justified by the fundamental outlook.''
LSE shares are up almost 11 percent since then, and 48 percent in the past year.
Back to News Review index page  

Nikkei tumbles as wrong order triggers a sell-off
Tokyo: The spectre of excessive computerization and technical glitches raised its head in a dramatic way when a basic input error led the Japanese stock market to tumble on Thursday.

Japanese brokerage giant Mizuho admitted that the wrong order was initially placed due to a basic input error by one of its dealers. The mistake triggered some of the year's biggest losses on what has so far been a bullish year for the Tokyo bourse. It has also triggered an investigation into how and if similar mistakes can be prevented in the future.

On Thursday, Mizuho had placed a sell order for 610,000 shares, or about US$3bn worth of stock, in J-Com, an Osaka-based personnel recruitment and placement company that was making its debut on the exchange that day. Instead of saying that it would sell one share for 61,000 yen, or about US$600 per share, the brokerage placed an order saying that it would sell 610,000 shares in the company for 1 yen, or about a penny, each. The order effectively represented 41 times more than the company's actual outstanding stock, for the company had only sold 2,800 shares at its initial public offering and had just 14,000 outstanding.

After crashing to an all time low, J-Com's shares quickly bounced back and rose to its daily limit of a high of 772,000 yen once the order was seen as a mistake on the part of the brokerage house. The problem escalated however as Mizuho did not own up to its mistake until after the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed for the day.

In the meantime, investors started to sell off brokerage shares as they speculated that Mizuho would post huge losses as a result of its error. That fear in turn led to a sell-off in securities equities in general, building up to a broader market sell-off.

The benchmark Nikkei-225 index slumped 1.95 percent Thursday, its third-largest single-day decline this year, to 15,183.36.
Back to News Review index page  

Kuwait to invest US$44bn in the upgradation of its oil industry
Kuwait City: The Gulf state of Kuwait has earmarked a spending of more than US$44bn, over the next 15 years, to upgrade its oil industry and to boost output to 4mn barrels per day (bpd).

'Total estimated investments in the oil sector from 2005 to 2020 will exceed US$44bn. We aim to modernise the sector and boost output to four million bpd,' energy ministry undersecretary Issa al-Oun told Agence France-Presse as Kuwait prepared to host a meeting of the OPEC cartel on Monday.

The money will be spent on projects such as a large refinery and upstream projects to raise output, in addition to a number of large petrochemicals plants, he said.

Kuwait, which sits atop 10 pct of the world's proven reserves of around 100 bln barrels, has the fifth largest OPEC quota at 2.227mn bpd. It's actual production is around 2.5mn bpd.
Back to News Review index page