SYDNEY (Reuters) - Suncorp-Metway Ltd (SUN.AX: Quote, Profile, Research), an
Australia general insurer and bank, missed estimates with a 28
percent fall in first-half profit, hurt by the global credit
crisis and severe weather events, sending down its shares 8
percent.
Suncorp’s claims expenses jumped 22 percent to A$2.18
billion ($2.1 billion) after large-scale flooding and storms in
eastern Australia […]
Lloyds TSB Group Plc, the biggest U.K.
provider of personal loans, said second-half profit increased 10
percent, helped by mortgage lending, asset sales and cost controls.
The bank gained 4.8 percent in London trading after saying
net income in the six months ended Dec. 31 rose […]
The retention of AAA credit ratings
for the insurance units of MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group
Inc. earlier this week brought the global banking system and
capital markets back from the brink.
But just how deserving the worlds two biggest bond
insurers are of AAA rankings […]
Helphire Group Plc, a U.K. supplier
of rental cars and repairs for motorists involved in accidents,
fell the most in almost 11 years after first-half profit was
short of analysts estimates and debt almost doubled.
Helphire tumbled 41 percent to 172 pence, the most since the
companys […]
ZURICH, Switzerland
- A frantic search for four stolen Impressionist paintings led to a most unlikely place: the parking lot of a mental hospital just a few hundred yards from the scene of the crime.There, in the back seat of an unlocked car, a painting by Claude Monet […]
PRINCETON, MINN.
First, there was JoBeth. Then Tayler, Jon, Victoria, Jordain, Brian and Jonathan.
Sami Wilson, a 17-year-old senior at Princeton High School, has attended seven friends’ funerals the past two years. All died in teenage driving crashes.
You kind of just get used to the feeling of a funeral around here, Wilson said the other day, […]
Choose your clich%26eacute;: Penny-wise, pound-foolish, A penny saved is a penny earned. Whichever you favor, you’re probably spending time counting pennies when you should be thumbing dollars.
Are you the sort of consumer who checks GasBuddy.com to save a nickel on a gallon of gas and then blindly renews the auto insurance every year without […]
Joe Totten, 15, is carefully negotiating the one-way streets of downtown St. Paul with John Kunz, a longtime driver’s education teacher at Highland Park High School.
Joe is one of more than 40 teenagers in the after-school class, checking off his 10 video-heavy classroom sessions and his three two-hour behind-the-wheel lessons before going for his license […]
The DFL majority plans to charge boldly into the 2008 legislative session today with proposals for gasoline tax increases, universal health care and more that appear destined for a collision with Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
DFLers began squaring off on Monday, with Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller of Minneapolis saying that Republican rule had set the […]
Dow index adds two, boots two
The Dow Jones industrial average will soon include Bank of America Corp. and Chevron Corp., giving the blue-chip index more of an oil and financial flavor. Besides the addition of Bank of America, the second-largest U.S. bank, and oil firm Chevron, Dow Jones Indexes said Monday that cigarette-maker Altria and […]