2009 Ernst & Young Business Risk Report Business is increasing its focus on a wide variety of risks as global economic conditions worsen in the aftermath of the credit crunch, according to the “2009 Ernst & Young Business Risk Report”. The annual top-ten ranking, published in conjunction with strategy consultancy Oxford Analytica, reveals that companies
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. The global economy and financial markets are being transformed, a result of the huge growth in easy credit over recent years slamming into the credit crunch buffers and meeting head-on with the greatest government-driven fiscal and monetary ‘stimulus’ in history. This will have numerous implications, many intended and some not, for investors (actually, the
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UK-based fixed-odds betting company Stanleybet said on Friday a court ordered its outlet in Athens to be shut again while a higher tribunal considered its right to compete with Greek gambling monopoly OPAP. Stanleybet opened a store in the Greek capital and one in the northern city of Thessaloniki late last year, but Greek authorities
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As part of its efforts to kick start the Cyprus economy, the island’s largest financial institution, Bank of Cyprus is offering attractively priced loans of up to EUR 1.5 bln earmarked for housing, business and the hotel/construction industries. Vassos Shiarly, Bank of Cyprus Group General Manager Domestic Banking announced details of the loan schemes during
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Lloyds Banking Group said its HBOS unit made a hefty loss last year due to bigger-than-expected bad loans, wiping nearly a third off the group's stock market value. HBOS had a pretax loss of 8.5 billion pounds ($12.28 billion) for 2008, Lloyds said in a statement on Friday, driven by 7 billion pounds in bad
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By Crispian Balmer French President Nicolas Sarkozy has gone from hero to villain in the European Union within just six weeks, the plaudits for his deft leadership of the 27-nation bloc giving way to vilification over his protectionist urges. The row over French efforts to ringfence its car industry at the expense of its eastern
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European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn pointed out on Friday that there is a unique chance to reunite Cyprus in 2009 and that this chance should not be missed. Rehn said the EU is fully supportive of the process of direct talks for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem, adding that the two sides
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Hopes for a U.S. government plan to subsidise mortgages lifted stocks and oil prices on Friday but the yen and government bonds fell, while investors look to a G7 meeting for further action. News that Washington was hammering out a programme to subsidise mortgages for homeowners before they fall into loan arrears helped Wall Street
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Protectionist worries and dire figures from a shrinking euro zone economy set a gloomy tone for a G7 meeting on Friday where finance leaders will focus on tackling global recession and setting new market rules. Australia's parliament pushed through a stimulus plan and the U.S. Congress was due to vote later on President Barack Obama's
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G7 finance ministers headed to Rome to discuss the global economic crisis on Friday with a warning from Germany that the world could be plunged back into the dark days of the 1930s if governments resorted to protectionism. The G7 industrialised economic powers, all in recession, are under pressure to prove they can work together
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