BP MAY face further fines of almost $15bn (£9.2bn) over the Gulf of Mexico disaster in 2010 that killed 11 workers, after a judge in New Orleans ruled the company was “grossly negligent”.
The Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba is likely to be valued at $163bn when it floats on the New York Stock Exchange.
Factory activity fell to a 15-month low in France, an 11-month low in Germany and 14-month low in Italy, according to Markit. Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, cut interest rates to a record low of 0.05% in an effort to revive the eurozone’s economy. The FTSE 100 hit a 14-year high of 6,904.86.
Sterling stumbled as polling showed that the Better Together campaign’s lead over supporters of independence for Scotland had been whittled down to six points just weeks before the referendum. Goldman Sachs warned that a “yes” vote could threaten a eurozone-style crisis in the UK.
London mayor Boris Johnson’s plan for a four-runway hub airport in the Thames estuary was rejected by Sir Howard Davies’s Airports Commission because of the expected £100bn price tag and huge environmental costs.
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The star fund manager Neil Woodford jettisoned his £43m holding in HSBC, citing a fear that banks could face bigger fines from regulators, hitting dividends.
The auditor Mazars was fined £1.9m by the Financial Reporting Council for acting against the interests of a client and endangering the pensions of thousands of shop workers.
Balfour Beatty sold its American project management consultancy Parsons Brinckerhoff for $1.3bn to the engineering giant WSP Global.
More than 75% of blue chips rethought pay policies last year, said the auditor Deloitte, which found that 78 FTSE 100 companies changed salary, bonus and long-term incentive policies for top directors.
Andrew Palmer, chief planning officer at Nissan, where he has worked since 1991, is to become chief executive of Aston Martin.
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The Co-op’s acting chief executive Richard Pennycook was confirmed as successor to Euan Sutherland, who quit in March.