Internet search phenomenon Google is buying a privately-held email security company in a cash deal worth USD 625 mln in order to challenge Microsoft’s business domination with Office. Postini’s technology encrypts and archives e-mails and instant messages that could help dircet more companies to choose Google’s popular Gmail, that boasts some 10 mln users, and

Piraeus Bank announced its intention to proceed with a EUR 1.35 bln capital increase via a rights issue. The proceeds of the rights issue will be used to further finance the expansion of operations both in Greece and abroad. Specifically, the bank intends to accelerate and selectively augment its previously announced retail branch-opening program, invest

Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services said today that its ratings on The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBSG; AA-/Stable/A-1+) and related entities are unaffected by today’s announcement that it will be taking a controlling interest in a commodities trading and marketing joint venture alongside Sempra Energy (BBB+/Stable/A-2). Through the joint venture, to be called RBS

Vivartia SA has delisted its 75% owned Cypriot dairy subsidiary, Charalambides, from London’s AIM. Vivartia currently holds 81% of Christis following a public offer, which is still in progress. Vivartia formally Vivartia said the decision to withdraw Charalambides from AIM is due to low capital requirement at current stage. This is seen in line with

The number of eggs for hatching placed in incubation in Cyprus in May reached 143,100 eggs for laying and 1,410,600 eggs for meat. Both eggs for laying and eggs for meat recorded a decrease compared to the previous month. But compared to the corresponding month of the previous year, the eggs placed in incubation for

By Stavroula Kousiappa   The demand for tyres in Cyprus is completely covered by imports due to the lack of domestic production of tyres. The companies that are involved in the trade of motor vehicle tyres are divided in two categories: the importing companies which trade tyres in large quantities and the smaller firms which

By John O’Donoghue, Consultant Adviser, Caratfin Ltd.   This has been a tough month. The one month charts for the markets we frequently refer to in this column look very much like particularly nasty roller coaster rides, though –thankfully – the end points are reasonably close to the start points, as is the case with

Ericsson announced it has extended its cooperation with the United Nations to aid and improve emergency response by leveraging technological progress in telecommunications. Ericsson will provide a complete mobile telecommunications solution that can be rapidly deployed to selected humanitarian operations and that will be installed, operated and maintained by Ericsson employees. For the past seven