Bankers for Bradford & Bingley have been left to sell over 70% of its 400 mln pound cash call, the UK lender said, as it hired the former head of rival Alliance & Leicester to draw a line under its troubles. The mortgage bank, which has seen a torrid three months since it first surprised

Britain's leading share index traded flat on Monday as negative data dragged on housebuilders, while BHP Billiton's results buoyed miners. At 0736 GMT the FTSE 100 was down 3.7 points, or 0.1% at 5,451.1 and is now down over 15% for the year to date. Meaningful direction was difficult to come by with the UK

LONDON (Reuters) – European shares fell early on Monday as investors sold heavyweight banks and defensive drugmakers to return to the recently battered mining sector amid a weaker dollar, while oil shares tracked crude higher. At 0843 GMT, the FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares was down 0.8% at 1.179.79 points. The index is

HONG KONG (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar slipped on Monday, easing from a six-month high against the euro as gold and oil prices rose, but slowing demand for commodities was widely seen supporting the currency in the medium term. Reports in recent weeks have confirmed the euro zone and Japanese economies are shrinking, prompting dealers

Spending on online ads overtook advertising on mainstream TV in Britain last year, growing 40 percent to 2.8 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) and accounting for 19 percent of all advertising, UK regulator Ofcom said. In its annual report on Britain's 51 billion-pound communications industry, the watchdog found that Britons spent four times as much time

An Infineon chip could be at the root of complaints from around the world that Apple Inc's new iPhone drops calls and has unpredictable Internet links, according to a research report from Nomura. BusinessWeek also reported on its website on Thursday that the iPhone is suffering from faulty software on an Infineon chip, and that

Microsoft Corp's Xbox 360 beat Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 in Japan weekly sales for the first time two weeks ago, riding robust demand for a recent Xbox 360 title produced by Namco Bandai Holdings, a magazine publisher said. Microsoft sold 28,116 units of the Xbox 360 in the week ended Aug. 10, compared with 10,705

U.S. consumer prices climbed at twice the rate expected in July and job prospects kept softening last week, according to Labor Department reports on Thursday that pointed to swelling economic stress. The department's Consumer Price Index, the most commonly used inflation gauge, rose 0.8% in July and on a year-over-year basis jumped 5.6%, its strongest

The value of existing U.S. single-family homes in metro areas fell 7.6% in the second quarter compared with the same period in 2007 with homes in the West tumbling 17.4%, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday. The quarterly survey of metro region prices also showed that prices fell in 115 of 150 metropolitan