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Straumann CFO to step down after 4 months in job

July 10, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

ZURICH, July 9 (Reuters) – Straumann’s (STMN.S) finance chief will step down after four months in the job because it didn’t fit his expectations, the world’s second-largest maker of dental implants said on Friday.

Chief Financial Officer Wolf-Ruediger Daetz, who joined Straumann from Siemens Building Technologies, will leave in the autumn and his role will be covered on an interim basis by Chief Executive Beat Spalinger, the Swiss company said.

“Basically the job just didn’t fit his expectations. He is staying until the end of September and he will fulfil his responsibilities,” a Straumann spokesman said.

“Spalinger was the previous CFO. He knows the team. He has done the job before,” the spokesman added.

(Reporting by Katie Reid; Editing by Erica Billingham)

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Euronav could benefit from BP spill – paper

June 16, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

June 15 (Reuters) – Belgian crude oil transporter Euronav (EUAV.BR) could end up benefiting from the BP (BP.L) oil spill if the United States needs to transport more oil, its finance chief said, according to Belgian daily De Tijd.

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“The image of the oil sector is bad, but for us it can be a good thing,” the paper quoted Hugo De Stoop as saying in a report published on Tuesday.

“The U.S. will probably have to import more oil from overseas areas like the Middle East. This will be done by ship. We can with our large and modern oil tankers play a major role.”

On Monday, BP said it aimed to nearly triple its oil-collecting capacity within a month to a maximum of 80,000 barrels a day in response to a U.S. demand that the company work faster to contain the gushing leak in the Gulf of Mexico. [ID:nN14207756] (Writing by Ben Deighton; Editing by Dan Lalor)

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Renault CFO to step down next month – sources

June 11, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

June 10 (Reuters) – Renault (RENA.PA) finance chief Thierry Moulonguet will step down after almost 20 years at the French carmaker next month for personal reasons, two sources close to the company told Reuters on Thursday.

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Le Figaro newspaper said earlier that Renault banking unit head Dominique Thormann would replace Moulonguet.

“Moulonguet will leave next month for personal reasons,” one of the sources said.

Renault declined to comment. (Reporting by Gilles Guillaume; Editing by James Regan)

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UPDATE 1-BASF names Kurt Bock as new CEO from May 2011

June 1, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

FRANKFURT May 31 (Reuters) – BASF (BASF.DE), the world’s biggest chemical maker, named its finance chief Kurt Bock to succeed Chief Executive Juergen Hambrecht, who is expected to retire next year.

Bock, 51, is currently also the head of BASF’s North American operations, and analysts had seen either him or Asian operations head Martin Brudermueller taking over the helm.

Brudermueller, 49, will take over as vice chairman of the executive board, BASF said on Monday.

Both appointments become effective after BASF’s annual general meeting on May 6, 2011. The supervisory board will decide on further appointments to the management board in early 2011, the company said.

Shares in the company were unchanged after the news, gaining 0.8 percent to 43.200 euros at 1056 GMT.

(Reporting by Maria Sheahan)

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Deutsche Bank lures with higher dividends -paper

May 24, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Deutsche Bank wants to return more cash to shareholders in the future, its finance chief said in an interview with German Sunday weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

“In the coming years, rising accruals and cash flow in our private clients business should help boost earnings. Furthermore we also want to go back to paying dividends similarly attractive to those seen in the past,” Stefan Krause told the paper, when asked why investors should still buy Deutsche’s shares.

He reaffirmed the bank’s target for a pretax profit of 10 billion euros ($12.50 billion) from its operating businesses for 2011.

(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner; Editing by Louise Heavens)

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Vodafone cuts down value of Indian venture by a third

May 19, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, May 19 (ANI): A price war triggered by stiff competition and future payments for spectrum has forced telecom giant Vodafone Group to cut down the value of its Indian venture, Vodafone Essar, by 3.2 billion dollars.

Prices in India, where Vodafone has added nine million customers in three months, have come down by a third.

Vodafone is also unhappy the Indian authorities’ plans to charge firms more for 2G licenses they already hold and make takeovers harder, The Sun reports

Vodafone’s Chief executive officer Vittorio Colao said: “I don’t think these rules (on consolidation and spectrum) make sense. India needs investment. India is a vast country with a vast population still not fully able to communicate. What India needs is investment and good technology and this will not come in an environment with too many operators and fragmentation of investment.”

The company had acquired an economic interest of 67 percent in the asset from Hutchison for 11.1 billion dollars in 2007, but its current value is merely 8.2 billion dollars, Vodafone said on Tuesday.

The world’s largest private mobile phone firm may find that its difficulties in India are far from over, the paper said.

Finance chief Andy Halford insisted though that India was still a huge asset. The company has 100 million customers there, more than in Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK combined. (ANI)

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BofA set to name outsider Charles Noski as CFO – WSJ

April 15, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

April 14 (Reuters) – Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) is set to announce outsider Charles Noski as its chief financial officer on Wednesday, filling in a key position that has been vacant for months, the Wall Street Journal reported.

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Noski was most recently the finance chief at defence contractor Northrup Grumman Corp, the paper said. He left the firm in 2005.

Noski was also the chief financial officer of the telecommunications giant AT&T Corp (T.N) from 1999 to 2002, the newspaper said.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank has been grappling to right itself after its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co just over a year ago became mired in controversy over soaring losses and bonus payments to Merrill bankers.

BofA’s former CFO Joseph Price now heads the bank’s consumer, small business and credit card units.

Bank of America could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours. (Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

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EADS wants U.S. growth regardless of tanker-paper

April 9, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

PARIS, April 8 (Reuters) – European aerospace and defence group EADS (EAD.PA) will continue to expand in the United States even if it does not bid for a major U.S. aerial refuelling contract, the chairman of its board of directors told Les Echos newspaper.

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Bodo Uebber, finance chief of Daimler (DAIGn.DE) which owns a 22.46 percent stake in EADS, said in an interview published in the French newspaper on Thursday the decision would not affect the Vision 2020 plan announced in January 2008.

The 12-year strategy aims to “rebalance” EADS as a global company with less reliance on airliner sales for its revenues and on high-cost European factories for its engineering and production work.

The group is considering whether to bid for the Pentagon’s multibillion dollar contract for aerial refuelling aircraft after U.S. partner Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) pulled out of the race and the Pentagon pledged to extend the deadline for a bid.

“We don’t change a plan like that because one contract is lost. What can change is the ways to reach the goals. Given the extent of its portfolio, EADS has a number of routes open to it to develop in the United States and beyond: helicopters, space, security, services … we could also progress through acquisitions,” Uebber said.

“We have not pursued certain projects in the past to protect the group’s treasury. But if air traffic and the economy in general pick up again then we could seize opportunities.”

Uebber said the company would have to draw lessons on programme and risk management from the troubled A400M military aircraft project which has suffered a raft of technical problems and delays.

“But we should also learn lessons, in agreement with our customers, on the way of making contracts. The board is also going to look into that subject in depth and has given some of its members the task of proposing solutions by the end of the quarter,” he said. (Reporting by Helen Massy-Beresford; editing by Karen Foster)

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Gunmen kill eight in Mexico

April 20, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Mexico City, April 20 (EFE) Eight law enforcement officials, including two federal police officers and two prison guards, were killed in an attack on a police convoy in western Mexico, authorities said Sunday.

According to the public safety secretariat, the assailants opened fired Saturday on the police convoy transporting an important drug suspect to a prison in the coastal state of Nayarit.

The gunmen were trying to free nine inmates, including Jeronimo Gamez Garcia, a top leader of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel, officials said.

Garcia, who is suspected of being the logistics and finance chief of the criminal organization run by the Beltran Leyva family, and was in charge of buying cocaine from Colombia’s Valle del Norte drug cartel. He was arrested in January.

Mexico has been plagued in recent years by drug-related violence, with powerful cartels battling each other and the security forces, as rival gangs vie for control of lucrative smuggling and distribution routes.

Armed groups linked to Mexico’s drug cartels murdered around 1,500 people in 2006 and 2,700 people in 2007, with the 2008 death toll soaring to more than 6,000.

So far this year, more than 1,750 people have died.

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Mali names new mines minister

April 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

* Mines, energy and water ministry split in two

* Former finance chief takes mining portfolio

BAMAKO, April 10 (Reuters) – Mali, one of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest gold producers, has named a new mines minister as it accords increasing importance to exploitation of its natural resources, the government said.

Abou Bakar Traore, a former finance minister, was appointed head of a new ministry dedicated only to mining. Energy and water, previously part of the mines minister’s portfolio, will be overseen by Mamadou Diarra, who took over at the combined mines, energy and water ministry last October.

Gold accounts for around 70 percent of Mali’s export earnings and 15 percent of gross domestic product. Last month, Prime Minister Modibo Sidibe said income from gold would rise 20 percent in 2009 to $240 million, even as the quantity of gold mined falls. [ID:nLU595452]

Earlier this year, the mines ministry forecast 2009 output would be 46 tonnes, down 13 percent on last year, as mines approach the end of their productive lives.

One of the few assets to benefit from the global financial crisis, gold which many investors see as a safe store of value — hit an 11-month high of more than $1,000 per ounce in February. It has since fallen, but some analysts expect it to regain this level in the near future.

Mali, which is applying to join an international anti-corruption scheme, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), said last year it would set up a dedicated account for gold revenues in a effort to improve transparency.

Firms active in Malian gold include the world’s third largest gold miner, AngloGold Ashanti (ANGJ.J), and Randgold Resources (RRS.L).

Mali’s second biggest export industry, cotton, has been badly hit by falling prices on international markets and the high cost of imported fertilisers. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; Writing by Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Anthony Barker)

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