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Tuesday 6 November 2007

PetroChina the Richest

Following on from the article on the richest companies in the world. China’s bid for global domination took another step forward yesterday as its state energy company, PetroChina, became the worlds most valuable business with a value of £480 billion ($1 trillion). Shares in oil and gas producer PetroChina almost tripled in value when they floated on the Shanghai stock market. They overtook the biggest firm, US oil group Exxon Mobil, which has a market value of £234 billion ($470 billion). Shares floated in the morning at £1.07 but sold at £2.83 after lunch. PetroChina is worth more than Britain’s energy companies, BP and Royal Dutch Shell combined. (source: Metro News) - The Richest

Time Warner, the media and owner of AOL, Time Warner Cable, Home Box Office, Turner Broadcasting System, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Time Inc. & Time Warner Investments, announced the elevation of Jeff Bewkes to the chief executive’s job, after expectations that the new leader will radically reshape the company behind the Harry Potter films and the CNN news network and will take this position beginning of next year.

Mr Dick Parsons, currently CEO and first African-American to run a major media company, is staying on as chairman for an unspecified period, although it is likely that Mr Bewkes will succeed to that role in due course. His departure was agreed in outline at a board meeting in London a fortnight ago. At the time, that prospect was enough to lift Time Warner’s shares by 3% and yesterday the shares gained as much as 3.2% early in the day after the appointment was confirmed but ended slightly lower at $17.81 (£8.90). Time Warner earned $2.27 billion (£1.13 billion) in the first half, on revenues of $22.16 billion (£11.8 billion). (source: Timesonline)

Ryanair's, reported a 23% rise in pre-tax profits to €459.5 million (£319.7 million) in the six months to the end of September and showed that charging passengers for extras, such as food, car hire and excess baggage, has boosted revenues at the budget airline. Passenger numbers rose 20% to 26.6 million.

The chief executive Michael O'Leary said “Ryanair was raising its profits guidance for the year and the average fare per passenger, were only likely to drop by 5% over the winter period, instead of the 10% previously forecast.”

He also took the opportunity to criticise the Government's plans to reform air passenger duty (APD), announced in last month's pre-Budget report. The proposed shift from taxing passengers to taxing flights was "modern highway robbery", he said. Ancillary revenues, from all the add-ons the airline charges, rose 54% to €252 million and now account for more than 16% of total revenues but are targeted to grow to 20%”. To that end, Ryanair is to test its in-flight mobile phone service on 25 planes before the end of March next year with a view to charging passengers to make calls and send texts. The company charges £2 to check in at the airport rather than online and £5.50 per kilo for excess baggage and £5 to check a bag into the hold. (source: The Independent)

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