Blackstone Group bows out of its $25bn (£16.3bn) offer for Dell, thereby, paving the way for Michael Dell and his private equity partner Silver Lake to go ahead with a $24.4bn (£15.9bn) to acquire the world’s third biggest PC maker. Blackstone’s withdrawal from the deal follows reservations expressed by Blackstone’s private equity fund investors on the merits of the deal, and concerns that the stock market had already valued Dell…

Barclays investment bank chief Rich Ricci has resigned and will walk away with a year’s salary as a part of a major management shake up at the bank. Rich Ricci was the right hand of Bob Diamond, the ill-famed ex-CEO of Barclays. Rich Ricci will be stepping down on June 30 with Rich Ricci  leaving the bank with a salary of £700,000. Such payments are not usually made when an…

Npower has become the latest firm to be embroiled in tax avoidance scandal following Starbucks, Amazon and Google, while admitting to have dodged corporation tax for over three years despite making heavy profits of £766m by hiking the electricity and gas bills. The tax dodge by Npower which was done by bending a ‘simple UK accounting rule’ is the cause of fresh outrage among MPs and public. Npower tax avoidance…

AXA UK has announced that it is discontinuing the practice of offering face-to-face financial advice in banks namely Co-operative bank, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks in the UK, which has resulted in the French insurer cutting 450 jobs owing to new regulations which ban commission payments. Under the new regulations by Retail Distribution Review, customers will now pay upfront instead of having to deal with a middleman.

Centrica and Qatar have tied up for a £650m joint venture to acquire Canadian natural gas assets of Suncor Energy in a move that reiterates Centrica’s plan to secure more gas supplies by developing its resources internationally, which would reduce its exposure to price movements in the wholesale gas market. The deal is the first joint investment for Britain’s biggest energy supplier and the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter since they…

Joh A Benckiser, German consumer products business is planning to acquire coffee firm Douwe Egberts (DE), in a £6.4bn takeover. DE Master Blenders 1753, the Dutch proprietor of the DE coffee and Pickwick tea, has announced that the company had arrived at a conditional agreement on a £10.63 per share cash takeover by Joh A Benckiser. The Joh A Benckiser takeover of Douwe Egberts is to create a global hot…

JC Penney has employed Blackstone Group to replenish its dwindling cash reserves in a first move by Mike Ullman, who was reinstated as chief executive this week following the ouster of Ron Johnson, a much-vaunted Apple veteran whose reform plans backfired, leading to a chaotic situation in the company. JC Penney now wishes to raise $1bn capital in cash with an option of selling a minority stake in the US…

Marks and Spencer (M&S) has registered seventh quarterly loss on the trot. But the company isn’t looking down on this. It says, it’s still got support of the shareholders who believe in it and would soon bounce back. Marc Bolland, chief executive, Marks and Spencer, who is in the firing line to up the performance, is positive and has said that though, sales in the key merchandise fell by 3.8%,…

Nationwide has proclaimed that it is trimming the rates on some of its fixed-rate mortgages by 0.1% point, which would make them the lowest in the the company’s history. The Nationwide rate cuts are meant only for those people with a sizable 40% deposit to shell out. Moneyfacts.co.uk has divulged that the Nationwide fixed-rate mortgage cut offer comes with a £900 fee, which is applicable to two, three and five…