General Motors has threatened to take legal action against the U.S. importers of a Chinese car called the Chery if they attempt to use that brand name in the United States.
The company claims that Chery is too close to the Chevy nickname it has used to sell its Chevrolet brand for over 90 […]

In London at midday Friday, Hit entertainment was down on news that one of the potential buyers of the children’s entertainment company had dropped out of the bidding competition, sending Hit’s shares down by 2.2 percent. In the technology sector, meanwhile, Spirent was down another 3.9 percent after a large fall on Thursday, still […]

In mid-day trading in London on Thursday, telecommunications testing company Spirent saw their shares fall by 24.9 percent after the company issued a warning that they will probably be reporting an operating loss of around £10m for the first half.
On the news, Citigroup downgraded Spirent’s stock to “hold” status. Computacenter was down as […]

After an announcement of substantial losses and the delay in release of two new video games, Eidos has accepted a takeover bid from SCi Entertainment.
Eidos is the maker of such popular video games as “Tomb Raider” and “Hitman.”
In accepting the SCi bid, Eidos is passing on another offer from Elevation, a […]

Napster is set to produce a series of 11 music programs for the UK’s Channel 4 as it branches out from it’s online subscription music download service.
The company’s vice president calls this new venture “the next logical step” for Napster. In January, the company’s chairman and chief executive had predicted that it would soon […]

Pearson, the publishing company behind brands such as Penguin books and the Financial Times, fell 6% to £386m in 2004 from £410m a year earlier.
The fall in profits was blamed on two square factors, being the low value of the dollar, and also loss of sales from the Penguin books arm of the company itself.
Penguin […]

The HSBC bank today reported a 37% rise in pre-tax profit to £9.6bn ($17.6bn). Overall revenue rose 23% to £26.29bn ($50.59bn).
The HSBC does business in 77 countries, but the UK accounted for 24% of the company’s profits. However, the profits were boosted from the recent acquisitions of US lendor Household, and the Bank of Bermuda, […]

Reuters beat profit forecasts by posting a 52% rise in profits to £198 million.
This is despite that the weakness of the US dollar was blamed for loss of 11% on revenue, which fell from £3.24 billion in 2003 to £2.89 billion in 2004.
Reuters also reported that it had cut costs down by £234 million, debt […]

Icelandic venture capital group Baugur, has approached Somerfield with a £1 billion take-over over, as the VC company continues to try and impress upon the UK market.
Baugur already have a 5% stake in Somerfield, and also bought out the Big Food group in December, giving them control of Iceland supermarkets.
Shares in Somerfield rose nearly 14%, […]

Unilever is in moves to restructure the company away from a dual-management, after falls in pre-tax profits of 36%, to 2.9bn euros (£1.99bn).
Despite blaming market conditions for poor results, the company conceded that its dual-management structure hampered decision making
Under the restructuring plans, Patrick Cescau, the UK-based co-chairman, will become group chief executive, while Dutch […]