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Friday, April 1, 2011

Bank of Ireland shares jump on independence hopes

Bank of Ireland hopes to keep its independence

Bank of Ireland shares have jumped 41% on hopes the government will not have to take a majority stake in the firm.

However, Irish Life and Permanent plunged 54%, a day after the results of the stress test on the Irish banking system were announced.

The tests found the country's banks will need an extra 24bn euros (£21.2bn) to survive the financial crisis.

Bank of Ireland said it would be able to meet its capital requirements and thus remain independent.

Its shares closed at 31 euro cents. Irish Life closed at 17 euro cents.

"It seems very likely that the government will end up owning a majority stake in Irish Life & Permanent," said Emer Lang, banking analyst with the stockbrokers Davy in Dublin.

Capital requirements

Bank of Ireland has been ordered to raise 5.2bn euros ($7.4bn; £4.6bn) by early summer to meet capital requirements. The bank said it would do so.

"It has potential to raise some of that through further debt management," said Ms Lang, adding that some of the rest might come from existing shareholders, thus minimising the government's involvement.

The Irish Republic's government currently owns a 36% stake in Bank of Ireland. Investors hope it will keep its stake below 50%.

"The Bank of Ireland has at least a fighting chance of maintaining its independence," said Ms Lang.

"It has three months to keep itself out of the government's hands."

Fewer banks

“Start Quote

The painful consequence is that there is a shortage of capital of £21bn in these banks... That is a colossal sum for them to find.”

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Robert Peston
Business editor, BBC News

Read Robert's blog

Irish Life & Permanent has to raise 4bn euros. Emer Lang said it should be able to raise 1.1bn euros from its life business and from debt management, but that it would struggle to raise the remaining 2.9bn.

Shares in Allied Irish Banks initially fell 15%, but soon bounced back and closed up 11% at 21 cents.

The bank is already majority-owned by the government, and the state's stake might be raised, she said.

Allied Irish Banks is expected to be merged with building society EBS as part of a government plan to reduce the number of banks in the country.

Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks are expected to become the two main "pillar banks" on which the banking system will rest in the future.

It was announced last month that the heavily-indebted Anglo Irish Bank would be merged with the Irish Nationwide Building Society and its assets auctioned off.

Economic 'recovery'

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's said the latest round of tests were robust, despite criticism that the scenarios included in the assessment were no worse than the current economic situation facing the Republic.

It did downgrade Irish government debt to below A rating, however, but by a smaller amount than had been expected.

"It's as positive as a downgrade can be," said Eoin Fahy, economist at Kleinwort Benson Investors.

S&P said it expected the Irish economy to gradually recover.

"We are of the opinion that the sharp contraction in Ireland's nominal GDP... since 2008 has reached an end, and that the Irish economy is now set to gradually recover," the agency said in a statement.

Rival agency Fitch, however, said there was "significant uncertainty" surrounding the outlook for growth this year following a greater-than-expected contraction of the economy at the end of last year.

"The weaker GDP baseline, as well as increased bank recapitalisation costs announced on 31 March 2011, mean that the government debt-to-GDP ratio is likely to rise significantly higher than Fitch's projection of a peak of 103% of GDP made in December 2010," it said.

'Burning' bondholders

Most of the cost involved in restructuring the Irish banking system will be borne by the taxpayer.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan had tried to get German, US and UK investors in Irish bank bonds to share in the burden, but his plan was vetoed by the European Central Bank (ECB).

The ECB was concerned large investors might panic and thus make it harder for bond issuers to raise funds, thus causing a damaging credit crunch.

This would also mean Irish banks might find it difficult to raise funds in the future by issuing bonds.

"It would inhibit their capacity to get funds in the market in two and a half, three years time, if the people they are going to be seeking the funds from have shared in the burden - by burning the bondholders - to use the expression," Mr Noonan said.

NYSE Euronext gets rival bid from Nasdaq and ICE

NYSE Euronext is reviewing the new offer

US exchanges Nasdaq and ICE have mounted a $11.3bn (£7bn) bid for NYSE Euronext, topping a previous offer from Deutsche Boerse.

The bid compares with Deutsche Boerse's offer of $10.2bn.

But the move could raise competition questions, as it would bring together the two largest US stock exchanges.

The Deutsche Boerse bid itself is also likely to raise regulation issues, as a deal would create a massive presence in certain European financial products.

The Deutsche plan has also attracted political opposition from those against the idea of a foreign company taking over a Wall Street brand.

The new offer, valued at $42.50 per share, is 27% above the company's valuation before Deutsche Boerse's initial bid in February.

ICE, an Atlanta-based futures specialist, is interested in NYSE's derivatives business while Nasdaq would like the stock exchanges and options businesses.

NYSE shares rose 10.5% while Deutsche Boerse shares were down 0.2% in Frankfurt. Nasdaq fell 0.9% and ICE shares slipped 1.4%.

NYSE Euronext said its board would "carefully review" the new offer and recommended that shareholders should take no action pending its review.

US unemployment rate falls to new two-year low of 8.8%

The US unemployment rate fell to a new two-year low in March of 8.8%, from 8.9% in February.

It was the fourth monthly fall in a row. The unemployment rate has fallen by a percentage point during the last four months.

Employers created 216,000 jobs in March, the US Department of Labor said, higher than market expectations.

Other economic data showed a slight dip in manufacturing in March, although the report was seen as broadly positive.

The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) index of national factory activity dipped to 61.2 last month from 61.4 in February.

February's rate was the highest since May 2004. Any reading above 50 indicates growth.

US and European stock markets were boosted by the economic news. London, Paris and Frankfurt all closed with gains of more than 1.5%, while the Dow was up 1% by late afternoon.

Continuing recovery

Analysis

John Mervin New York business editor, BBC News

With this jobs report it does appear the economy has reached a real turning point.

Not just a theoretical one, only of interest to economists either, but one that might actually lead to an improvement in the lives of millions. Because if about 200,000 new jobs are created each month then, slowly, America will get back to work.

Barring the one-off hiring of census workers in 2010, it is four years since more than 150,000 jobs were created in two consecutive months.

The US may finally be pulling away from the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. But it is only a turning point. There is a long way to go. More than 13 million Americans who want full-time work, haven't found it yet.

Most of the new jobs were created in the private sector, in factories, shops and health care, as well as in education and several professional and financial services.

David Sloan of IFR Economics said: "This [the jobs report] suggests the recovery is continuing."

The new private sector jobs offset job losses in the public sector, mainly resulting from cuts by local government.

"The numbers are obviously good and one can hope that we will continue to see the market rise in continuing months," said Bernard Baumohl, managing director and chief global economist of Economic Outlook Group.

If employers keep on creating jobs at this pace, as many economists expect, there will be a further 2.5 million new jobs in the US by the end of the year.

"The steep decline in the jobless rate and the solid employment growth in recent months are encouraging," said the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbee, in a post on the White House blog.

That will do little, however, to alleviate widespread concerns that the economic recovery in the US is failing to create enough jobs to make up for the 7.5 million lost during the recession.

"As long as millions of people are looking for jobs, there is still considerable work to do to replace the jobs lost in the downturn," Mr Goolsbee acknowledged.

Mother jailed for seven years after killing her son, 12, by forcing him to drink bleach

Mother tried to kill herself and pleads guilty to manslaughter
She 'had voices in her head' telling her to 'end it now'
Psychiatrists conclude 45-year-old mentally unstable
Serious social services case review expected

A mother was today jailed for killing her autistic 12-year-old with bleach - after social services allegedly failed to address her mental health problems.

Satpal Kaur Singh, 45, struggled to cope looking after son Ajit and feared he would be taken away, the Old Bailey heard.

Her 'obvious' mental health problems were recognised yet she was 'allowed to resist help', the court was told.

Mrs Singh was found guilty of killing her son by forcing him to drink bleach and her case was heard at the Old Bailey

David Hislop QC, defending, said: 'Neighbours knew, school teachers knew, social services knew, but the tragedy for Ajit was that nothing was done.'

Singh made her son drink a cup of Domestos in February last year, just hours after she refused to co-operate with council staff at a meeting over his care.

She also drank some herself and in a suicide note said she had done it after being 'scrutinised and hounded by social services'.

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Singh, of Barking, east London, was jailed for seven years today after she pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility at an earlier hearing.

Judge Peter Beaumont, the Recorder of London, told her: 'I recognise how difficult Ajit was to care for.

'Your deteriorating mental health robbed you of proper insight into what was going wrong and erected real obstacles between you and people and the agencies that were trying so hard to help you.'

Barking and Dagenham council said a serious case review was expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

The court heard that, during a meeting with social services on the day she killed her son, Singh had appeared 'calm' and no-one who attended had any concerns about her behaviour.

But hours later she rang 999 to say: 'I've just murdered my son and I've tried to kill myself.'

Police arrived to find the boy lying on his back on the living room sofa, not breathing, and an 'almost overpowering' smell of bleach in the air.

Singh later told detectives that voices in her head had been telling her: 'You have to do it. Go for it, it's come to an end now.'

The judge told her: 'You faced the prospect of Ajit being taken away from you, but you killed him. You were, in my judgment, making a statement, without any consideration of his interests.'

Psychiatrists agreed that the defendant, who is originally from Manchester, had been suffering from a mental disorder.

Mr Hislop said: 'This was a woman who loved her son too much. The belief she held, because of her mental disorder, was that hers was an act of mercy.'

He said the boy's life, plagued by health problems, had been made bearable by the 'love and devotion' she had shown him.

Mr Hislop added: 'One of the tragedies of this case is that the deterioration of her mental health was recognised by so many, yet she was allowed to resist the help of those who should have known better - ignoring the fact that her very resistance was symptomatic of her obvious decline in mental health and her not having any insight into that deterioration.

'Social services and other agencies were aware of her mental health difficulties and the deterioration of them and they were also aware that she was under considerable stress and clearly not coping.'

Mr Hislop quoted a social services note from April 2009 which described a 'possible mental health breakdown' and said: 'She does not seek counselling to help her deal with her stress levels.'

In October 2009, Singh complained to a social worker that a disability manager had previously referred to her as 'another Victoria Climbie'.

Mother fights for life after falling on first attempt at rollerblading

Woman took helmet with her but left it in car

A woman is today fighting for her life in hospital after suffering brain damage in a rollerblading accident.

Mother-of-one Caroline Place fell and hit her head during her first attempt at rollerblading.

She was airlifted to hospital and had two emergency operations to remove blood clots on her brain.

Caroline Place, 44, had the accident in Darlington's South Park (pictured). Although the woman had taken a helmet with her when she and a friend went to skate, it was left in her car

However, doctors have warned the 44-year-old complementary
therapist's family to prepare for the worst as she remains on a life
support machine in James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough.

Although
Mrs Place had taken a helmet with her when she and a friend went to
skate in Darlington's South Park, it was left in her car.

Yesterday,
Mrs Place's husband, Paul, spoke of the family's anguish in trying to
come to terms with doctors' prognosis that even if she if she does
survive, she is highly unlikely to retain full brain function.

More...

Young stuntman left paralysed after landing on his head during routine at Legoland

Mr Place said: 'It seems just a matter of time now.

'The past six days have been the most horrendous six days of my life - but also the most beautiful of my life.

'I have learned so much about Caroline from the way she has touched so many other people.'

Mrs Place, of Gainford, County Durham, went rollerblading with a friend on Wednesday last week.

Mr Place said that the pair were travelling down a hill when the incident happened.

He
said: 'Her friend fell onto some grass and was laughing. When she
looked up Caroline was coming down the hill at a fair rate of knots.

'She was squealing with delight, which is Caroline all over.'

But when she reached the bottom of the hill, she lost her balance and fell backwards, striking her head on the path.

A paramedic alerted the Great North Air Ambulance Service, and a doctor from the service worked with Mrs Place for more than an hour before she was airlifted to hospital.

Mr Place said: 'She is severely brain-damaged. She was not wearing a helmet. It was in the back of the car when I went to pick it up.

'That was Caroline, but I would not recommend it to anyone else.'

Mr and Mrs Place are Buddhists, and Mrs Place, who was born in the Lake District, runs a therapy business specialising in hypnotherapy and crystal healing.

They have a son, Daniel, five, who Mr Place said had shown remarkable courage in dealing with the situation.

He said: 'He has been amazing. He has been to see his mummy. He understands death because he has lost both grandparents.

'Daniel was in the bath, one of his Power Rangers was having a conversation with the other Power Ranger, saying he had lost his mummy, and the other one was giving him a hug.

'He said he wanted to take her a crystal and went through them very carefully.

'He said, 'I think mummy needs Tiger Eye,' which has properties of healing.'

Mr Place described his wife as a free spirit who had overcome setbacks in life to become an incredible therapist.

He said: 'Caroline always said that if she was going to go, she wanted to go doing something she loved.

'She was full of life. She had not had an easy life. She had suffered from serious ME. She had lost her parents two years ago.

'She had lots to deal with, but she used her spirituality to take her forward in life.'

The couple had known each other for 18 years and were married in 2004.

'We were soulmates,' said Mr Place.

Mr Place paid trubute to the hospital staff caring for his wife, and said: 'Intensive care at James Cook have been absolutely amazing. They have offered Caroline the best care possible.'

Victoria's Secret model Candice Swanepoel defends her stick-thin figure

Her shockingly-skinny figure drew gasps when she appeared at a Victoria's Secret swimwear launch earlier this week.

But 22-year-old model Candice Swanepoel has defended her dramatically slimmed down figure, insisting she is perfectly healthy.

The South African model insisted: 'I am healthy and happy.'

Barely there: Candice Swanepoel has defended her rail-thin figure, insisting she is healthy, pictured here on Wednesday at a Victoria's Secret swimwear launch in Los Angeles

She told celebrity website People.com: 'I'm heartened to know how much everyone cares about me, but in this case, everything is normal and good.'

But during the event in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Candice attributed her rail-thin physique to dieting, stress and working out.

Back in November, she told ABC News and New York Fashion week that her hectic schedule contributed to her super slim look.

'I've been traveling around like crazy,' she said in the interview at the time. 'I get skinnier if I'm very busy.'

Disappearing act: She appeared alongside fellow Angels Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio and, far right, Miranda Kerr

Unrecognisable: Earlier in the day Candice revealed her dramatically slimmer figure, seen right looking fuller figured fronting the company's Valentine's Day campaign in January

Candice was at The Mondrian hotel in Los Angeles on Wednesday to model the new Victoria's Secret swimwear line.

Standing alongside models Alessandra Ambrosio and Adriana Lima, she stood out from her fellow Angels with her pencil thin legs and concaved stomach.

She also appeared noticeably slimmer around the jawline.

While Adriana and Alessandra looked slender in their black swimsuits, Candice looked almost emaciated next to the two girls.

Adriana, 29, who gave birth eighteen months ago to her daughter Valentina, showed no sign of carrying any extra baby weight and looked a much healthier weight than Candice.

Frightening: The South African beauty shocked onlookers with her alarmingly thin figure whilst modelling the lingerie line's new range of swimwear, alongside Alessadra, left, and Adriana, right

Even Alessandra, who is known for her slender frame, looked larger next to the blonde South African.

Candice's appearance was a far-cry from when she fronted up the company's Valentine's Day campaign - which was released in January this year.

In a two-piece raspberry bra set, her sexy curves were clearly on display.

In her modelling card by agency IMG, her statistics are given as 33-23-34 and a US dress size 8 (UK size 12).

Candice is fast becoming one of the most popular Victoria's Secret models and had landed the cover of the Victoria's Secret Swim 2011 Catalogue.

In recent years, the company has been criticised from shifting away from the curvy models that made the brand so famous in favour of super-slim girls.

Odd one out: Standing alongside fellow her she stood out with her pencil thin legs and concaved stomach

The lingerie line has had a long-line of beauties who have endorsed a healthy model figure that boasts ample cleavage and fuller legs and backsides, unlike most fashion models.

Legendary supermodels Heidi Klum, Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks have all walked the catwalk for Victoria's Secret.

The company have already come under fire after a 2010 shoot in St. Barts revealed a strikingly skinny Alessandra Ambrosio modelling the label's swimwear.

With her pelvic bones and ribs protruding just a year and half after having her baby Anja, she looked childlike next to two plus size models.

But Alessandra believes she is more on the curvy side and even once told the Daily Mail: 'I'm very lucky to work for a brand that wants women to be healthy. You need to be able to fill out the bra and the panties, so yes, I'm a curvier girl.'

Victoria’s Secret has gone from strength to strength since launching in 1977.

Though the brand is not currently widely available throughout Britain, the lingerie masters have big plans in place for the first UK flagship store to open next year on London’s New Bond Street.

Healthier: The lingerie line has had a long-line of beauties that have endorsed a healthy model figure boasting ample cleavage, fuller legs and backsides, including legendary supermodels, Heidi Klum, Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks

Healthier: The lingerie line has had a long-line of beauties that have endorsed a healthy model figure that boasts ample cleavage, fuller legs and backsides, including legendary supermodels, from left, Heidi Klum, Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks

Tony Curtis worst father in the world? Children sue for a share of his £37million fortune

To his millions of fans he was the last of the great matinee idols, the most handsome of all Hollywood stars and a man whose incredible sexual career encompassed a fling with Marilyn Monroe and a period of taking showgirls ‘two a day’ like vitamin pills.

But to his family, life with Tony Curtis — who had six children and six wives — was a more fraught affair. His actress daughter Jamie Lee Curtis has declared numerous times that he ‘wasn’t a father’ to her, and he admitted candidly that he had been a lousy dad.

Now, six months after his death, this assessment comes into sharp focus as it emerges that Curtis, star of film classics such as Some Like It Hot and Spartacus, has not left any of his children a solitary cent of his fortune — estimated by some to be worth as much as $60 million (around £37 million).

In fact, the fallout over his will has been such that I can reveal that his eldest child, Kelly, has taken legal action to challenge it — although this has so far failed.

I am also told that a second daughter, Alexandra, is contemplating further legal action. She has hired a lawyer to look into questioning the last will and testament, which was written just five months before his death last September.

It looks likely that the two half-sisters will now join forces and appeal. What seems to be stirring up the family is that Tony Curtis always said that there would be money for his children and grandchildren — and indeed they believe there were several prior wills drawn up in their favour.

However, his latest document explicitly — and extraordinarily — cuts them out completely. It reads: ‘I acknowledge the existence of my children . . . and have intentionally and with full knowledge chosen not to provide for them in this last will and testament.’

Legal action: Curtis poses with his daughters Alexandria and Allegra during 2009. Alexandria is seeking advice over the distribution of the will while Allegra has claimed she is a victim of her father's fame

Instead his sixth wife, a blowsy, 6ft former lingerie model named Jill Vandenberg gets the lot.

As you might expect, this is not popular with the children.

His will decrees that the fortune is left to a trust, which is to be administered by Jill as his ‘personal representative’. She has ‘absolute discretion’ over the money, specifically including all of his property portfolio — including homes in Hollywood, Nevada and Hawaii — which she can sell should she want to.

‘Everything the children should have, Jill has,’ says Christine Kaufmann, the German starlet who was Curtis’s second wife and mother of daughters Alexandra and Allegra.

‘I do believe that deep down inside he was a nice Jewish father, and you know that nice Jewish fathers do not disinherit their children,’ Christine told me last week. ‘Tony was on strong painkillers at the end, and they make you really stoned.’

She claims that Curtis loved his children deeply, as they did him, despite his failings as a father. She also says there had been no falling out that explains their omission from the will. Kaufman suspects that any money Vandenberg inherited is being spent on the horse sanctuary which she runs in Sandy Valley, Nevada.

Happier times: Tony Curtis and first wife Janet Leigh pose with their daughters Kelly and Jamie Lee

‘Jill has lots of three- legged horses that she has to take care of which are very expensive,’ she says.

Feelings among the family have now reached an all-time low. One of Curtis’s sons, Ben, 37, is said to feel so bitter that he even refused to attend his father’s funeral last October. B

en’s mother Leslie, Curtis’s third wife, says that he ‘loved his father very much’ but found it a ‘poignant and difficult time’ because of the death of his brother, Nicholas, who succumbed to a heroin overdose in 1994.

Meanwhile Allegra, the black sheep among the children, who posed for Playboy in her youth, has recently written a book describing her father as a drug-addicted ‘demon’, and bemoaning the fact that he never gave her a chance to be his daughter.

Curtis picks up his son Nicholas, who succumbed to a heroin overdose during 1994

‘My father was a victim of his fame, and I am the victim of my father, the global star. I got to learn about the dark side of the spotlight,’ she said. ‘My life with him was always unstable.’

So far the tome has only been published in Germany. But Allegra, Curtis’ fourth daughter, contacted me last week from Majorca where she lives to say that, despite the problems, she always continued to love her father.

Her feelings towards Jill Vandenberg, however, are ‘not the kindest’. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who gave a moving address when her father was laid to rest, has also recently spoken of Tony’s failings as a father — claiming there was ‘no bond’ at all between them.

But Jamie Lee, Curtis’s second daughter, by Janet Leigh, has reportedly decided that it would be futile to sue because she thinks her stepmother may have already frittered away the fortune.

Jamie Lee’s publicist Heidi Schaeffer simply said sternly last month: ‘No one should be speculating on Jamie’s reasons for not being involved in the lawsuit. There is no further comment.’

Wife number one: Janet Leigh, who Curtis married in 1951

Wife number two: Christine Kaufmann was mother of Alexandra and Allegra

And at the centre of the storm is Miss Vandenberg, who has just issued a brief statement saying: ‘Tony’s last will and testament and his passing wishes are family matters.’

It’s a complicated scenario because, whatever his family’s feelings towards Vandenberg and the inheritance they claim she has cheated them out of, Tony was certainly happy in his twilight years with his sixth wife.

The pair met in 1993 in a restaurant, and were married five years later when he was 73 — and she just 30.

Although he said in interviews that he never ‘got over’ the death of his son Nicholas, and could never speak of the pain, Jill undoubtedly helped him through that dark period of his life.

And in 2008, just two years before he died after a heart attack, Tony spoke of how deeply content he was with her. ‘I don’t want anyone in my life except my wife Jill,’ he said. ‘And for the first time in my life it isn’t just lust.’

Coming from a man who once admitted that he struggled with his ‘addiction to women’, that was quite an accolade.

Alcoholism and drug addiction were behind him by this point of his life. And after many years at the epicentre of the Hollywood social scene alongside characters including Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Kirk Douglas, he had retired from acting and devoted himself full time to painting.

Wife number three: Leslie Allen bore Curtis two sons, one of whom died

Wife number four: Actress Andrea Savio was Curtis' next wife

Wife number five: Lawyer Lisa Deutsch, who he married in 1993

Wife number six: Jill Vandenberg was married to Curtis until his death

It was left to Jill to nurse him through various illnesses. He came close to death after a bout of pneumonia in 2006, which left him in a wheelchair.

He also suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and had increasing trouble breathing. In July 2010, he was taken ill with an asthma attack at a book signing event.

Christine Kaufman, however, remains steadfast in her suspicion of Jill. She calls her a ‘fridge made of marzipan’ — a curious phrase intended to indicate that she is sweet on the outside, but cool on the inside.

‘I’m not picking on Jill because I admire her for staying with Tony,’ Christine admits.

‘He was a complicated man but she was very happy with him, and he with her.
‘But Tony promised to take care of the children, and we all want to know what happened to that promise.’

Friday, April 1, 2011

Bank of Ireland shares jump on independence hopes

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