Latest news with #TomSims
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
German watchdog finds no abuse in companies' pre-results calls with analysts
By Tom Sims FRANKFURT (Reuters) -An investigation by Germany's financial watchdog has found no reason to change companies' practice of communicating with analysts before publishing results, following media concerns about the potential disclosure of insider information. Regulators have taken a closer look at so-called pre-close calls after media reports highlighted an apparent connection between high volatility in share prices and the communication with analysts. Germany's BaFin watchdog disclosed at a conference on Monday the findings of a study it began last year. Details will likely be published this week. "We do not currently see any systematic problems with the execution of pre-close calls," Christoph Schell, a BaFin official who studies market surveillance and abuse, said at the conference. Strong price reactions are isolated cases, and there is no need to tighten rules around the calls, he added. Last year, the European Union's securities watchdog warned that companies should not share market-sensitive information with external analysts ahead of their financial statements. The practice of pre-close calls is widespread - not just in Germany. It is typically communication before the publication of financial statements, between a company and analysts who generate research, forecasts and recommendations on the company's shares and bonds. Supporters say the calls contribute to the orderly functioning of markets. Schell said that BaFin found in its study that 63% of companies listed on Germany's DAX index of blue-chips and the MDAX of smaller companies hold pre-close calls. More than 90% of those companies conduct individual chats with analysts, he said. BaFin found that 70% of the market trading around calls it investigated showed no significant market reaction, while only 10% did. "We have investigated these cases and have so far found no evidence of any unauthorized disclosure of insider information," Schell said. He added that companies should nevertheless be as transparent as possible, by announcing the calls on their websites and holding them in a group format rather than individually.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Kangaroos gun Wardlaw returns, Cats get Miers back
Geelong welcome back Gryan Miers from concussion in round nine as George Wardlaw returns for North Melbourne against a Brisbane Lions outfit bolstered by the return of two premiership forwards. The ladder-leading Lions have regained Logan Morris (calf) and Kai Lohmann (shoulder) for Sunday's trip to Hobart, where they face a Kangaroos side desperate to snap a six-match losing run. Wardlaw's inclusion after a week off with a corked thigh is a boost for Alastair Clarkson's side, who have also called up defenders Aidan Corr and Toby Pink. Jackson Archer (hamstring) is unavailable while Kallan Dawson and Will Phillips have been dropped. Sam Day (hamstring) is out for Brisbane, who have left out Conor McKenna and Will McLachlan, while premiership tall Darcy Fort is back to help No.1 ruckman Oscar McInerney. Geelong forward Miers is back to take on GWS at GMHBA Stadium on Sunday after he was concussed by a high blow from Hawthorn's Connor Nash on Easter Monday, which earnt Nash a four-match ban. The Cats have also recalled Ted Clohesy and Jed Bews, who is back from a finger injury, while Lawson Humphries (concussion), Rhys Stanley (hamstring) and Oli Wiltshire (omitted) are out. The Giants have handed a debut to draftee Cody Angove and recalled Jake Riccardi, with Toby Bedford (eye) and Darcy Jones (knee) unavailable. Also on Sunday, Richmond will give key forward Tom Sims his debut against winless West Coast. Kane McAuliffe returns for the Tigers, with Maurice Rioli and James Trezise dropped. The Eagles have lost Jeremy McGovern (concussion) and Bo Allan (suspended), and dropped tall forward Jack Williams, for their first trip to the MCG this season. Sandy Brock and Tom Gross will play at the home of football for the first time, while Bailey Williams has also been recalled.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Commerzbank staff to protest possible UniCredit takeover at annual meeting
By Tom Sims FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Commerzbank employee representatives are calling on staff to protest against a possible takeover by the Italian bank UniCredit, signalling that resistance to any deal remains fierce. The event is scheduled two hours before the German lender's annual general meeting on May 15. "We want to make it clear once again how important Commerzbank's independence is and that we know how to defend it," said a letter from employee representatives announcing the protest. "Be there too, it's up to all of us!" said the letter, seen by Reuters. Handelsblatt first reported the protest plans. Last year, UniCredit disclosed it had amassed a sizeable stake in Commerzbank, eliciting concerns from employees, as well as Commerzbank management and top German government officials. Commerzbank and UniCredit declined to comment on the protest. Andrea Orcel, UniCredit CEO, shocked Germany's corporate and political establishment last year when the Italian bank snapped up a hefty stake in Commerzbank and began pushing for a tie-up in a bold attempt at a pan-European bank merger. UniCredit's pursuit of Commerzbank has become a test of Germany's resolve to fend off foreign suitors and prevent its financial centre in Frankfurt from losing one of its few remaining big commercial banks. Orcel has said he would wait until a new government was in place in Berlin after a recent election before acting further. He has also recently said he may need to wait until 2027 to make a decision on whether to pursue a deal. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Analysis-Berlin debt splurge turns screws on flagging German property
By John O'Donnell and Tom Sims FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) - Berlin's borrow-to-spend splurge is driving up borrowing costs, further choking embattled property companies seeking fresh loans and threatening to compound the country's wider economic woes. A property crisis in Germany, Europe's industrial engine, has seen worried investors pull billions of euros out of the critical sector, amid scores of company bankruptcies. After rocketing over the past decade, property prices are now in a downward spiral, with experts predicting there will be worse ahead. Tumbling demand for offices, many still vacant after the pandemic, and a continued slide in home values are compounding Germany's problems, as it grapples with one of its biggest post-war economic slumps. Earlier this week, the country's lawmakers agreed to go on a 500 billion euro ($545.45 billion) borrowing spree, ditching self-imposed debt restraint, to renew the country's sagging infrastructure. Perversely for German companies, intended to benefit from this boost, it means higher borrowing costs. The yields for benchmark 10-year government bonds, which determine the cost of credit, rose more than a quarter percentage point after the recent spending plans. "The clouds have darkened," said Sven Carstensen, a manager at Berlin-based consultancy Bulwiengesa, warning that the recent rise in borrowing costs put a question mark over the belief that home prices were over the worst. He said deals for commercial property, such as offices, were already "very muted because prices are too high" and would likely remain so this year. On Wednesday, the chief executive of Germany's biggest property owner, Vonovia, also sounded a cautious note. Announcing its third year of losses, taking the tally to more than 8 billion euros, Rolf Buch cautioned that his plans to return to growth may be upended by the Berlin spending, meaning it may have to postpone some building projects. "Higher interest rates are not good for real estate values because they make refinancing more expensive," Buch told journalists. Furthermore, it is unclear whether any of the money will trickle down to the property sector given more pressing demands, such as the ailing rail network. Germany's fragmented system of government, riven by rivalry and where local politicians hold much sway, could also delay money reaching property firms. Florian Schwalm, a managing partner at EY for real estate, said that however the spending plans are sliced and diced, the impact on revitalizing real estate will be muted. Against this backdrop, a continued trickle of bad news is casting a shadow over Germany. In January, investors withdrew 500 million euros from German property funds, continuing the worst spate of outflows since the global financial crisis and following turbulent months, where roughly 7 billion euros was taken out by investors, according to an analysis by Barkow Consulting. "The stream of bad news last year means that there is no end in sight," said Peter Barkow. "We'll see another rush to withdraw from such funds in the middle of this year." The German economy is meanwhile struggling. One in five of the 202 insolvencies of big German companies last year are property firms, according to an analysis by consultancy Falkensteg. Germany's 730 billion euro property industry is a critical pillar of its economy, representing nearly a fifth of output and eclipsing the country's famous car sector, according to the ZIA industry association. After years of boom, real estate ground to a halt in 2022 when the European Central Bank swiftly hiked interest rates to stamp out the worst bout of inflation in decades. The industry, which had been firing on all cylinders, was ill-prepared. Construction projects halted, workers lost their jobs, building sales collapsed and property developers went insolvent. The most spectacular collapse was the property and retail giant Signa, with its big footprint in Germany. It resulted in the sale of Germany's most famous department store, KaDeWe in Berlin, and the halt in the construction of a skyscraper in Hamburg. "The higher cost of borrowing is here to stay," said Andreas Naujoks, a real estate lawyer with Noerr. "While big companies may get through, smaller companies will struggle." ($1 = 0.9167 euros) (Reporting By John O'Donnell; Editing by Alexandra Hudson) Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
01-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ECB's multi-trillion payments breakdown sends shudders through Europe
By Tom Sims, Francesco Canepa and John O'Donnell FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Banks struggled to process payments on Friday after an unprecedented day-long breakdown in the European Central Bank's machine underpinning trillions of euros of money movements. The ECB said late on Thursday it had fixed the roughly seven-hour outage in its payment system, which had left transactions likely worth trillions of euros from firms, consumers and investors up in the air. But the breakdown, which has dealt a blow to the international standing of the central bank behind one of the globe's most important currencies, continued to reverberate on Friday. "The Eurosystem (of euro zone central banks) acknowledges that the outage had adverse consequences for market participants as well as for their clients," the ECB said in an update published late on Friday. The malfunction of the so-called Target 2 system (T2), used to settle more than 3 trillion euros ($3.12 trillion) of daily payments and financial trades, meant transactions between banks could not go through. Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, said on Friday ordinary bank payments, such as wages, pensions and social welfare transfers, have been delayed and could take several hours longer than usual to arrive. Deutsche Boerse's Clearstream, which processes the trading of securities such as company stock, and handles around 500,000 transactions daily, also reported delays. Switzerland's SIX stock exchange said it had made up a delay in settlements on Thursday by extending the settlement day, and was able to start business as usual on Friday. The Swiss Bankers Association said it was unaware of any impact on the country's banks from the ECB outage. Banks, which depend on the ECB system to settle their euro accounts with one another, had been instructed to keep placing their payments in the queue until the issue was finally fixed. The incident lasted until early on Friday morning, delaying money sent in the night for about six hours, said a person familiar with the breakdown, and upsetting the system for what is likely to be a number of days. While it remained unclear whether the mishap would be felt by regular bank customers, it has raised a question mark over the transactions between lenders that underpin the very functioning of the euro zone's economy. The ECB ruled out "malicious (or) foul play" on Thursday, blaming instead a "hardware defect". On Friday, the central bank for the euro zone said it initially thought the problem had been in the system's database but later found out it was "actually due to an infrastructure component". "A thorough analysis of the incident has been initiated," the ECB said on Friday. "It will identify measures to allow an earlier identification of the root cause and to avoid reoccurrence in the future." Rebecca Christie of Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel said the incident was a "wake-up call". "This is a wake-up call that all serious digital payment and currency systems need ... backups," she said. "Outages dent ... credibility." ($1 = 0.9614 euros) (Additional reporting by Frank Siebelt in Frankfurt and Oliver Hirt and Ariane Luthi in Zurich; Editing by Matthias Williams, Thomas Seythal, Gareth Jones, Philippa Fletcher and Susan Fenton) Sign in to access your portfolio
