Financial News

By Gina Keating LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) board of directors will meet on Monday amid speculation it may buy Pixar Animation Studios Inc (PIXR.O: Quote, Profile, Research) in a deal that could revive Disney as the world's dominant animation studio and give computer pioneer Steve Jobs a powerful new platform. Sources familiar with the talks said the meeting was a regularly scheduled board meeting. It was not clear whether the board  ...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research) has extended its offer for South African investment holding firm VenFin (VNFJ.J: Quote, Profile, Research) , which holds 15 percent of mobile phone operator Vodacom, VenFin said on Friday. The agreed takeover, which will raise the British giant's stake in Vodacom to 50 percent, will close at 1000 GMT on February 3, VenFin said in a statement. The deal marks the second biggest foreign direct investment in post-aparth ...

By Yann Leguernigou and Louise Heavens PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) - Manoeuvring by French banks rekindled talk of a Franco-German stock exchange merger on Thursday, as the London Stock Exchange rejected a foreign bid in a battle of bourses felt as far away as New York and Australia. The moves are the latest salvos in a power struggle that has seen every permutation of alliance mooted between the London, Paris and Frankfurt exchanges in the past year, and roiled the shares of all them, without a vi ...

By Sophie Hares LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's blue-chip FTSE 100 index rallied on Friday as oil stocks jumped after crude topped $67 a barrel and Shire shares soared after the drugmaker settled a keenly watched patent dispute. A batch of upbeat broker comments helped the positive tone, boosting stocks including publisher Pearson , food and retailers Associated British Foods and Gus . By 1110 GMT, the benchmark was up 30.9 points, or 0.5 percent, at 5,723.5, shrugging off a weak session in Japa ...

Nepal’s government on Friday imposed a daytime curfew in the capital Kathmandu and detained a former prime minister and senior opposition politicians in an attempt to thwart a planned protest against King Gyanendra. // The government issued three-month detention warrants against former prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, president of the Nepali Congress — the largest party in the seven-party coalition pressing for more democracy — and Madhav Kumar Nepal, general secretary of the Communist Par ...

Geoff Foster, Daily Mail20 January 2006 LEGENDARY billionaire investor Warren Buffett stirred up the banking sector when dealers heard whispers that he was building a minority stake in Lloyds TSB via his Berkshire Hathaway investment company. WANT TO KNOW MORE? READER SERVICE: Share dealing POLL: Where will the FTSE 100 finish at the end of 2006? OTHER STORIES Market Report: Friday P ...

By Gina Keating LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A possible merger of the Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Pixar Animation Studios Inc. (PIXR.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , if successful, could give Pixar chief Steve Jobs the power to break down barriers that have long existed between online content, computer hardware and digital distribution. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Disney was in talks to buy Pixar for $6.7 billion in stock, making Jobs -- wh ...

By Anshuman Daga LONDON (Reuters) - Stocks ended higher on Thursday, recovering from losses struck in the previous session, as confidence returned to global markets, and mining and bank issues such as BHP Billiton and Lloyds TSB led gainers. Bank Lloyds TSB jumped 2.6 percent to close at a 3-year high at 516-1/4 pence, supported by strong sentiment for financial stocks, which have been boosted b ...

Speculation about further reforms to China’s stock market helped drive Chinese shares listed in Hong Kong to their best level for more than eight years on Thursday. // The index of China Enterprise stocks, or H-shares, rose 1.2 per cent to 6,103.43, its highest level since September 1997. H-shares rose 12.5 per cent last year, and have outperformed mainland Chinese stock indices for the past sev ...

Japan Post will not be able to develop a new computer system by October 2007 when Junichiro Koizumi, prime minister, has pledged to split it up into four separate units in preparation for full privatisation, according to its president. // “We cannot do it. It’s such a gigantic business,” Masaharu Ikuta, president of Japan Post, said, referring to the world’s biggest savings institution. The po ...