Jumbo, Greece's largest toy retailer, said on Wednesday net profit for its financial year to end-June dropped 17%, hurt by one-off taxes and the nation's austerity-driven consumption downturn. Jumbo said net profit fell to 79.2 mln euros ($107.5 mln) from 95.7 mln euros in its previous financial year. "The results of the current financial year
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The European Investment Bank, the EU's financing arm, signed a 180 mln euro financing deal with Cyprus on Thursday for waste-water and urban development projects. Some 140 mln euros will go towards sewerage systems and waste water treatment on the island, which suffers from chronic water shortages. It is part of an EIB credit line
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Piraeus Bank, Greece's fourth largest lender, withdrew its offer to buy government stakes in ATEbank and Hellenic Postbank saying the government took too long to decide, its deputy CEO said on Thursday. "Two and a half months after expressing interest for ATEbank and Hellenic Postbank, Piraeus Bank withdrew its interest after seeing that the pertinent
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. INTERVIEW: By Michele Kambas (Reuters) The United Nations special envoy for Cyprus expressed hope on Tuesday that a deal on the divided island could be brokered by the end of the year, healing a decades-old conflict threatening Turkey's bid to join the EU. Alexander Downer, a former Australian foreign minister who took over as
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Cyprus celebrated the 50th anniversary of the island’s independence on Friday with a military parade in the capital Nicosia. President Demetris Christofias, flanked by Greek National Defence Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Cyprus Defence Minister Costas Papacostas, took the salute, watched also by the island’s political, military and religious leadership as well as members of the
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Oil giant BP's <BP.L> incoming Chief Executive Bob Dudley said on Thursday he wanted to restore the company's dividend payments next year. "The board will get together and talk before the end of the year about restoring a dividend in some form in the first quarter," he told BBC television. "Its obviously for the board
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South Korea's LG Electronics said on Thursday it had signed a partnership deal with Microsoft on cloud computing and virtualization, hot IT technologies aimed at helping business cut costs. Under the pact, LG will introduce monitors integrated with Microsoft software. The monitors will function as virtual computers, allowing multiple users to run programs off a
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broad availability in coming weeks for delayed model The world's top cellphone maker Nokia said on Thursday it has started to ship its flagship smartphone model the N8. Last week Nokia said it has delayed by a few weeks deliveries of the N8 model to the clients who had ordered the phone, hitting its shares
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Greece on Monday will present its draft 2011 budget, targeting a smaller fiscal adjustment to dig out of its debt crisis after a big deficit reduction this year, still a challenge within a persisting economic slump. Under the terms of a 110 billion euro bailout agreed with the IMF and its euro zone peers, Greece
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Spain lost its final top-line debt rating on Thursday as the government sought backing from lawmakers for a budget it hopes will be austere enough to convince markets it can slash the deficit at a time of economic weakness. Moody's become the third and last rating agency to cut Spain out of the highest AAA
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