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TOKYO (AFP) – The euro eased against the dollar amid lingering concerns over the European debt crisis, a reversal after weak US economic indicators sent the greenback lower late last week, dealers said.
The euro fetched $1.4298 in Tokyo morning trade, down from $1.4317 in New York late Friday. The single European currency inched down to 115.58 yen from 115.61 yen. The dollar rose to 80.81 yen from 80.77 yen.
"Investors moved to reap profits following the euro's rise against the dollar late last week," said Dai Sato, dealer at Mizuho Corporate Bank.
"The dollar was sold after weak US economic indicators gave rise to a view that the Federal Reserve may delay steps to bring its monetary policy back to normal from the current ultra-expansionary phase," he said.
Sato added that market activities are expected to remain subdued as New York and London markets will be closed Monday for holidays.
The dollar began falling on Thursday after a report showed US jobless claims rose after two weeks of declines.
Washington also left unrevised its estimate of first-quarter economic growth at a tepid 1.8 percent. Most analysts had expected a rise to 2.0 percent.
The US Federal Reserve has kept rates at zero since December 2008 to boost an economic recovery while the European Central Bank hiked its rates by a quarter point in April and is expected to do so again soon.
Meanwhile, Greece's sovereign debt problem continued to overshadow the single European currency, dealers said.
Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou said Sunday he was confident about receiving the next aid installment, rejecting a German magazine article that cast doubt over the transfer.
The head of the eurozone finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned last week that the International Monetary Fund may block the next installment, the fifth tranche in a 110-billion-euro loan package agreed for Greece.
Der Spiegel magazine of Germany reported Sunday that the European Union will follow suit unless Athens does more to fix its public finances.
"It will be news on the EU periphery debt situation that will draw the bulk of the attention," RBC strategists told Dow Jones Newswires.
As the world's first celebrity polar bear, Knut used to spend his days feasting on raw meat, swimming in a black-bottom pool, and gazing at the hundreds—if not thousands—of visitors who flocked to see him every day at the Berlin Zoo. During his prime, candymaker Haribo churned out 1 million raspberry-flavored Knut gummy bears daily, and Berliner Volksbank issued tens of thousands of ATM cards featuring his furry face. There was also the 2007 book, Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World, and the 2008 film, Knut & Friends. Along with Leonardo DiCaprio, he graced the cover of Vanity Fair.
Knut (pronounced Kuh-noot in German) achieved international fame hitherto unknown in the animal kingdom on account of his irresistible story. He was born into captivity in 2006, rejected by his mother, and raised by a zookeeper. To environmentalists, Knut was an emblem of the anti-global-warming movement; to business, he was a cuddly money machine. In its 167-year history, the Berlin Zoo—which is subsidized by the city and listed on the Berlin Stock Exchange—has been profitable for only three years, says Heiner Klös, its animal curator. Those were 2007 to 2009, the Years of Knut, when yearly attendance rocketed from 2.5 million to 3.5 million visitors, and the zoo made more than $30 million. In all, Gerald Uhlich, a former chief executive of the zoo and the architect of Brand Knut, estimates that the polar bear generated more than $140 million in global business.
In 2010, however, Knut grew up and became less cute, and attendance waned. Then in March, he unexpectedly died. Zoo-dwelling polar bears usually live well into their thirties—Debby of Winnipeg made it to 42—but an autopsy revealed Knut had suffered from encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain that caused him to lose consciousness, tumble into the water, and drown in front of several hundred horrified fans.
Now the fate of Brand Knut—unprecedented in the history of brands and animals—is up for grabs. Scores of book publishers, moviemakers, marketers, advertisers, and manufacturers of stuffed animals, lunchboxes, and coffee cups hope to profit before the public's memory of the cuddly cub is replaced with that of a large, dead polar bear. There are already plans for a television documentary in Germany. The chinamaker KPM is issuing $315 commemorative Knuts that have Zur Erinnerung ("in memoriam") inscribed on them. Uhlich is writing a book about the untold story behind the rise of "der Icebear." And for good reason. "A dead Knut brand could still make millions," says Birgit Clark, a London-based trademark attorney who has studied the Knut phenomenon. What happens to Brand Knut in the next few months will determine if it stays profitable or, like Knut, dies too.
However, the greatest threat to the brand—and potential Knut profiteers—is actually its owner, the Berlin Zoo, which is reluctant to profit from a dead polar bear. Clark says the zoo licenses the Knut trademark only to outfits deemed environmentally sensitive—those that preserve Knut's image as "an ambassador of climate change," says Klös. This leaves Uhlich, the former zoo chief and aspiring Knut biographer, exasperated. "Brand Knut is established," he says. "There is still greater potential to use it for further products or services!"
Uhlich, who left the zoo in late 2007 amid a rather public philosophical dispute over, among other things, profiting from a baby polar bear, isn't alone. Udo Marin, the chief executive officer of the Berlin Club of Merchants and Industrialists, also believes the zoo failed to exhaust its moneymaking potential. "Knut presented the unique chance to generate so much money via marketing that the zoo could have become independent of state subsidies," Marin says. Yet ulterior motives, he says, led the zoo to resist that. "The traditional zoo director doesn't like the idea of being responsible for a positive net result," Marin says. "He is the head of an educational unit. Education is one of the basic jobs of government." The good thing about governments, Marin says, is that "generally they don't question the wisdom of visiting the umpteenth zoologist congress in Australia or buying a rare bird which no one is interested in."
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- It's been a pretty good week for the Treasury Department's bailout program.
Chrysler repaid a$5.9 billion high-interest loan, and Treasury is lowering its ownership stake in bailed-out insurer AIG through astock salethat will bring in $8.7 billion.
But the 2008 TARP program is far from a wrap: Taxpayers are still on the hook for $102 billion in loans.
Congress authorized $700 billion for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, but Treasury only paid out $411 billion. Of that amount, including the payments from Chrysler and AIG expected this week, $309 billion has been returned.
TARP loans were initially used to stabilize credit markets during the height of the financial crisis, and later to bail out automakers and jump start mortgage modification programs.
A couple years ago, it was anybody's guess whether these loans would be repaid. Now, various parts of the program are starting to pay dividends. Others, not so much.
Banks, many of which were on the brink of collapse in 2008, got $245 billion in the bailout bonanza. Not every bankhas paid back those loans, and in fact, there is still $23 billion outstanding.
MUMBAI: Many foreign investors and private equity funds putting money in Indian firms will soon discover that pulling out of the country can be a lot tougher than they imagined.
For years, offshore financial and strategic investors have struck deals with their Indian partners to put in place an easy exit arrangement. It gave the overseas investor the right to sell back his equity shares to the promoter of the Indian company where he had invested.
The understanding between the two partners helped closely-held Indian firms attract overseas financial and strategic investors who, in turn, derived comfort from the arrangement. But now, there are clear indications that the Reserve Bank of India will soon shut the exit door.
The central bank, which often has the last word on cross-border fund flows, has recently disapproved the sellback transaction by a foreign investor, said a banker familiar with the case. "The decision can have far-reaching implications. Eight out of 10 private equity deals have such underlying agreements," said Anup Shah, partner at Mumbai-based chartered accountancy firm Pravin P Shah & Co.
Till now, the RBI has been objecting to such deals, particularly by real estate firms, where securities issued by Indian firms (to foreign investors) are debt or quasi debt in nature, such as convertible debentures, optionally convertible bonds, compulsorily convertible papers and preference shares.
"But this is the first time it has objected to sell-back transactions in a plain equity deal. It's an extreme view," said the banker. Legally, a right to sell back securities is executed by giving the foreign investor a put option that he can exercise to sell the shares back to the Indian promoter.
Foreign investors exercised such a right when the local company failed to perform or came out with an initial public offering. Objecting to the put option arrangement, the RBI argued that a put option to the offshore investor meant the money obtained by the local company is not foreign equity but foreign debt, which is governed by stringent rules, particularly in sectors like property.
But the argument was never used against plain equity investment backed by put options. The recent case where the RBI has expressed reservations relates to a put option against a foreign direct investment in the equity of a logistics company which has missed the listing deadline.
"The law of the land allows such options to be used. In fact, there is a 30-year-old government circular which permits such options in joint venture agreements and collaborations between a resident entity and a non-resident investor," said H Jayesh, founder-partner of law firm JurisCorp.
According to investment bankers and legal experts, most foreign direct investments, particularly in unlisted firms, are against special rights given to foreign investors who can exercise such rights under certain conditions. For instance, foreign partners in many Indian insurance companies have a right to raise their stake as and when the government allows a higher foreign ownership in the sector at a pre-agreed pricing formula.
"So long as the shares are sold in accordance with the pricing guidelines of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the regulator should not have any problem," said Shah. The FEMA rules require shares to be sold above a floor price to a foreign investor.
"Some have supported the RBI view in case of convertible debentures. Here, a put option allows the foreign investor to exit before the conversion of the debentures into equity. But in case of pure equity investment, it is difficult to figure out why they should object," he said.
Bankers feel the RBI is often uncomfortable with the language ofthe option agreements that uses terms like the minimum internal rate of return (IRR) that the company has to generate, failing which the put will be exercised.
"It talks about yield and IRR, and the RBI, ever uncomfortable with leveraged money flowing in, reaches a conclusion that the money is loan not equity... But there is also another side to it. Often the local partner, unwilling to pay up, highlights these points in his proposal to the RBI, hoping to wriggle out of the payment commitment. Such cases inevitably end up in arbitration or disputes," said an investment banker.
There is also a growing perception that financial market regulators may be veering around to a common view on put/call option on Indian shares. The Securities and Exchange Board of India , the capital market watchdog, had opposed the agreements on put/call options between Cairn and Vedanta in the $9.6-billion deal where Cairn agreed to sell a majority stake in Cairn India to Vedanta. A few days ago, Sebi circulated a guidance note that opposed such put/call arrangements against Indian shares between two non-resident entities.
World leaders are in the French resort of Deauville for a summit of the G8 bloc of wealthy nations.
The leaders are discussing how to end the seemingly deadlocked Libya conflict, and their response to the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
Correspondents say recent events such as uprisings in the Arab world and Japan's nuclear crisis have given the G8 a new sense of purpose.
Also on the agenda is how little or how much the internet should be regulated.
Internet bosses - including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Eric Schmidt - are attending the two-day summit in Normandy.
The global economy and climate change will also be discussed at the gathering for the leaders of the US, Russia, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada.
As the summit opened, the French and Russian leaders met to agree the sale of four French-built Mistral helicopter carriers to Russia at a cost of at least 400m euros each (£350m; $565m).
The elements of the deal had been agreed and "the signature will take place within a fortnight", French President Nicolas Sarkozy said.
The deal - Russia's biggest foreign arms purchase since the fall of the Soviet Union - has caused consternation among some of Russia's neighbours and some of France's Nato allies.
Nuclear debate
Thousands of police have been deployed as part of a huge security operation and checkpoints have been erected on all roads leading to Deauville.
In drizzling rain, President Sarkozy welcomed his guests to the coastal casino resort as they were heralded by trumpets.
His wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, is hosting the leaders' spouses and greeted them in a white dress that showed off her pregnancy.
US President Barack Obama, who headed to the meeting after a state visit to the UK, is holding a series of one-on-one meetings with leaders including President Sarkozy and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy greeted the leaders' spouses in a dress that showed off her pregnancy
He has already met Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for discussions over the two countries' long-running row over US plans to create a missile defence shield in central and eastern Europe.
President Obama told reporters that the two men were committed to finding an approach that met the security needs of both countries, while Mr Medvedev said the two could work together towards a resolution, but it was unlikely to come in the near future.
Debate is expected at the summit on ways of improving global nuclear safety after the breakdown of Japan's Fukushima power plant following March's earthquake and tsunami.
G8 also offers the leaders their first real opportunity to debate the so-called Arab Spring uprisings.
Interim prime ministers from Tunisia and Egypt - where longtime leaders were overthrown this year - and the head of the Arab League will also be at Deauville for talks on a massive aid plan to help their transition to democracy.
Representatives from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are due to spell out for G8 leaders what it would take to stabilise the Tunisian and Egyptian economies.
But the ongoing global financial crisis will determine what concrete help can be offered and correspondents say large pledges are unlikely.
Points of friction
BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall, in Deauville, says that despite President Obama's appeal in London on Wednesday for democratic unity and leadership, there may well be friction at the summit.
She adds that Russia's president - one of the first to arrive - has opposed air strikes on Libya from the start, though he may offer to mediate in that conflict.
Africa will also be represented at the summit, as it has been since 2003. Newly elected leaders from Ivory Coast, Niger and Guinea are expected to participate in sessions about promoting democracy.
A shift in global influence to emerging powers such as India and China, who are not in the G8, has led to the bloc's relevance being questioned.
But speaking in London on Wednesday, President Obama rejected arguments that the rise of superpowers like China and India spelled the demise of American and European influence in the world.
After the summit ends on Friday afternoon, President Obama is scheduled to travel to Poland, the last stop on a four-country, six-day tour of Europe that began on Monday in Ireland.
Mon, May 30, 2011 By Jecolia Tong Asia One (Singapore)
MORE than 700 people showed up yesterday morning at East Coast Park for a 2km walk which culminated in a fair, and they helped to raise over $80,000 for underprivileged children in Cambodia.
The Walk The World event, held annually by express-delivery company TNT, consumer-goods company Unilever and global science-based company DSM, was organised in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP).
WFP is the United Nations' front-line agency in the fight against global hunger. However, those companies were not the only ones doing their part for charity. The event was held in more than 100 countries yesterday.
In Singapore, funds were raised through the sale of coupons, which could be exchanged for drinks and food, or used to play games at a fair set up at the event. There were corporate donors, such as Swiss bank BSI, which donated $30,000.
Walk The World began eight years ago, with the idea seeded here by TNT.
The concept was proposed to the WFP by TNT chief executive Peter Bakker, and was the first of such initiatives undertaken by the company as part of its corporate social responsibility scheme.
About $60,000 was raised in Singapore alone last year through this event. Internationally, Walk The World last year raised enough money to feed 14,000 underprivileged children for one year in countries such as Malawi and Tanzania.
TNT's target amount for Singapore this year was $60,000 but, as of yesterday, funds raised have surpassed that amount.
Funds will go to the School Feeding Programme in Cambodia, which provides food for schoolchildren. This encourages people to send their children to school, and it is hoped that promoting education will help many break out of the poverty cycle.
The event was open to the public, but most who turned up to show their support were from TNT, Unilever, Credit Suisse and BSI - the main corporate participants.
Many of those present - such as Ms Jennifer Hewit, the vice-president of the information-technology department at Credit Suisse - were with their families. Ms Hewit was with her husband and their two-year-old son, Tyler.
She said: "It's good to teach your children that not all children in the world have it as easy as they do."
"What the Cambodian People Are Anticipating is Case 002,Not Cases 003 and 004!" (sic!)
Political Analysis by Neth Pheaktra
Phnom Penh Post Khmer, May 20, 2011
(Unofficial English translation from the Khmer article)
Phnom Penh:"I would like to see the full completion of the trial proceedings for Case 002 against the four former senior Khmer Rouge leaders before starting to scrutinize Cases 003 and 004," a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime commented, adding that Case 002 has great significance for Cambodia’s history and for learning about the inner working of the Communist Party of Kampuchea on how it ordered and planned the killings of the Khmer people.
This case will fill a gap in Cambodia’s history because the question as to "why the Khmer Rouge savagely killed its own people?" has so far not provided an answer to all the victims. Furthermore, these four former senior Khmer Rouge leaders are currently very old and they are ridden with countless diseases.
This clearly shows that what the Cambodian people consider as important and is of great interest to them is Case 002, but not Cases 003 and 004. In fact, the latter two cases are currently facing turmoil among the judicial staff of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal itself. The International Co-Prosecutor would like to pursue the prosecution of these cases, but the National Co-Prosecutor – Mrs. Chea Leang – had released a Press Statement clarifying her position by stating that the suspects in Case 003 are not senior Khmer Rouge leaders nor are they the most responsible individuals of the Democratic Kampuchea regime.
Mrs. Chea Leang underscored in her Press Statement that: "The National Co-Prosecutor holds the position that the suspects in Case 003 do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for prosecution, and the prosecution of the defendants currently detained by the ECCC sufficiently fulfills the mandate of this Tribunal."
What was raised by the National Co-Prosecutor clearly emphasizes the goal of national reconciliation and the protection of political stability in Cambodia which has experienced peace only in the past decade. The push for more prosecutions on former Khmer Rouge cadres by the International Co-Prosecutor for whatever reason can lead to a failure in the national reconciliation process through the Khmer Rouge cases as it would increase the number of prosecutions and create more complications. The Cambodian Premier stated in the past that he would rather see the Khmer Rouge Tribunal fail than allow Cambodia to return to a new civil war.
Nevertheless, to prosecute or not to prosecute is a judicial matter. The Cambodian people want justice but they do not want a return to civil war or turmoil, nor do they want to see any secession zone created from the desire for justice. What the Cambodian people want is for National and International judicial officers to provide clear balance between justice and national reconciliation. Peace in Cambodia came at a heavy cost, financially and in terms of human lives. Therefore, the Cambodian people no longer want to see bloodshed and tragedy anymore.
. . . . .
Published in both English and Khmer editions of The Phnom Penh Post
May 27, 2011
Theary C. Seng (Photo: Nigel Dickinson, 2010)
Dear Editor of The Phnom Penh Post:
I am deeply troubled by Neth Pheaktra’s analysis “What the Cambodian People are Anticipating is Case 002, Not Cases 003 and 004!” in the Khmer-language Phnom Penh Post, 20 May 2011. He attributes one quote to an unnamed victim saying that s/he would like to see Case 002 against the “four senior Khmer Rouge leaders fully tried first before moving on to scrutinizing cases 003 and 004”, and goes on to defend the position of the National Co-Prosecutor Chea Leang and Prime Minister Hun Sen against Cases 003 and 004, quoting the Prime Minister that he would rather see the Tribunal fail than allow for political upheaval. In response to the analysis, I’d like to raise three points:
1. Division of Labor. The 40-plus personnel in the Office of Co-Investigating Judges of the Extraordinary Chambers (“ECCC”, or “Tribunal”) can proceed with their investigation of Cases 003 and 004 without interfering in the progress of Case 002. These 40-plus personnel have no role or duties in the trial hearings of Case 002 beginning on June 27. Currently, they are sitting idle, collecting salaries in the range of US$250,000 per month. The numbering of the case files is sequential for purposes of management, but the work on these cases can be done concurrently, especially as they are at different stages in the ECCC process, without overlapping staff or venues.
2. The False Dilemma of Peace vs. Justice. Truth is a pre-condition of justice. Justice is an integral element of peace. There can be no genuine peace without justice; there can be no justice without truth. A fragile peace of temporary stability of the Pyongyang or Burmese ilk cannot last; it will only further imbed impunity, oppression and other social ills into iron-clad destructive mentality. A fragile peace or faux stability is a superficial façade over a boiling kettle of unresolved social injustices. Truth, justice and peace are mutually reinforcing of and not opposed to each other, as argued by Neth Pheaktra, Madam Chea Leang and Prime Minister Hun Sen.
3. Cambodians Demand QUALITY justice, not a figure. We know there is no magical figure as to how many should be tried or indicted. We know it is not practical nor desirable to try everyone with a bloody hand for crimes committed during the period of 17 April 1975 to 7 January 1979. That would be in the hundreds if not thousands, and it would create social chaos and instability, working against the goals of reconciliation. That said, however, the current five is not enough and to push for another five is not unreasonable. Here, to argue social instability is to employ a false pretext, which is the current position of the National Co-Prosecutor and of the Government. In blocking further prosecutions, the Prime Minister is assuming the role of a prosecutor or co-investigating judge, an unacceptable overreach of his political position.
Cambodians will not be satisfied with the current five indictees, especially in light of the US$200,000,000 already spent on this ECCC, for the deaths of 1,700,000 to 2,200,000 loved ones. And there's a real fear that only Duch and one or two of the senior KR leaders in Case 002 will live through the whole trial. This is not an equation that is acceptable to Cambodians—trying only five, with the real possibility that of these five, only three or four will live through the full legal proceedings and be the scapegoats of the KR regime. It's nonsensical math.
In sum, to prosecute or not to prosecute is a judicial decision, not to be decided by politics, if we are to adhere to international standards. International standards of QUALITY JUSTICE of INTEGRITY FOR ALL, including poor Cambodians, not just for the Cambodian elites and people of the developed world. International standards of the United Nations, agreed upon by the Cambodian government for this ECCC.
___________________________ Theary C. Seng, Founding President CIVICUS: Center for Cambodian Civic Education
MGM China has raised $1.5bn (£912m) through a share flotation in Hong Kong, as investors look to grab a slice of Macau's gambling boom.
The company priced its stock at HK$15.34 per share, the top end of its expected range.
Gambling revenues in Macau have been rising turning it into the world's biggest gambling market.
MGM China is one of the only six companies that have a licence to operate casinos in Macau.
The company is a joint venture between MGM Resorts International, which owns some of the biggest casinos in the US and Pansy Ho, the daughter of casino mogul Stanley Ho, the largest casino operator in Macau.
Rising profile
The biggest beneficiary of the share sale is expected to be Ms Ho.
According to the previous arrangement, MGM and Ms Ho owned an equal 50% stake in the company.
However, according to an agreement between the two in April, Ms Ho will sell 21% of her stock, hence pocketing most of the cash from the sale.
According to some estimates, this may see her net worth swell to as much as $5bn, propelling her over her father, Stanley Ho, who's fortune is estimated to be around $3bn.
MGM's stake in the company will increase to 51% after the share sale.
Toyota Motors has said that its Japanese production fell by 63% in March compared with the same month last year, as its production cuts continued.
The company has been facing shortages in supplies of parts as production has been disrupted because of last month's earthquake and tsunami.
While it has restarted production in Japan, its factories have been working at a reduced output.
The firm has said output would return to normal only by the end of 2011.
The world's biggest car manufacturer also announced more cuts in production at its factories in Asia.
The automaker said plants in eight Asian countries, including Thailand and India, will operate at 50% capacity from 25 April to 4 June.
It also said that factories in these countries will operate for just three days a week during the period.
The company had already announced that its factories in China will operate at 30-50% of capacity until 3 June. Toyota's UK plant will work the equivalent of three half days a week in May.
Meanwhile, another Japanese automaker, Nissan Motors also announced that output at its Japanese plants had slumped by 52% in March compared with last year.
Uncertain times
Credit ratings agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) underlined the problems facing Japan's car industry when it revised its outlook for six major firms, including Toyota and Honda, from stable to negative.
It said on Monday that the disruption to the supply chain across the country was posing "a greater challenge" for the industry that it had initially anticipated.
S&P warned that the problems could erode Japanese companies' market shares and competitiveness.
Some analysts have suggested Toyota could lose its position as the world's biggest carmaker to General Motors.
While the recovery process in Japan has begun, Toyota said its cuts could be extended.
"So far we have announced cuts until 4 June," Paul Nolasco of Toyota told the BBC.
"However, given the current situation, it is highly likely that these cuts may be extended into the summer," he added.
S&P predicts that the shortage of parts will be resolved by July.
But it said power shortages in Japan, which are expected to continue during the summer, would prevent production returning to normal until at least October.
Britons are turning to fizzy drinks as they trade down from premium juices, according to Britvic.
The firm behind Robinsons, Tango, and J2O said fizzy drink volumes in the six months to 17 April rose 4.7%.
This compared with a 3.9% fall the volume of "still" sales, mainly due to pub-goers moving from J20s and Britvic mixers to on-tap carbonates.
Britvic's pre-tax profits for the half-year were flat at £27.7m due to a sharp rise in the price sugar and oil.
The company, which has the rights to sell Pepsi and 7Up in the UK, saw revenues rise more than 25% to £505m, with strong growth in international sales. Revenues in Britain were up 4%.
But profit growth was held back by what Britvic call an "unprecedented" period of rising prices of commodities.
The group cautioned earlier this year that its margins would be squeezed by a "rapid" surge in raw material costs that would stifle profits growth.
Keith Bowman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said the challenges facing Britvic remain significant.
He added: "Elevated commodity prices continue to pressure margins, while customer disposable income remains constrained across a number of important markets."
Even in my head, the question sounds stupid. "Can Lionel Messi get any better?"
The Argentine's biographer Luca Caioli thinks for a moment. "Messi's football is so good right now that the only person we have to compare him to is Diego Maradona, because like Maradona he can change the story of a match by himself," he says. "And if you look at Maradona, he was at his best in the 1986 World Cup, when he was 25. Messi is 23. So can Messi be better next year? Of course.
"No-one can really predict what will happen to this boy. Every trainer I interviewed for the book, from his first in Argentina - Salvador Ricardo Aparicio - to his Barca coaches Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola and his former Argentina boss Alfio Basile all told me the same thing: 'We don't know what the limit is for this kid'."
If the last three seasons are any guide, the sky is the limit for Lionel Andres Messi. Over that period, he has scored 137 goals in 158 games, becoming the youngest player to win the Ballon d'Or twice and helping Barcelona to three successive La Liga titles and the 2009 Champions League, along with several other trophies in the process.
On Saturday, with a heavy weight of expectation on his shoulders, Messi will lead Barca into battle at Wembley as they take on Manchester United in the Champions League final, a chance for the Blaugrana's number 10 to take himself and his all-star team a little further down the road to immortality.
Messi, Barca's leader by prolific example, is a phenomenon, a sportsman who does impossible things as a matter of course. It is perhaps more remarkable that in an age when many of his peers seem vaingloriously obsessed by self-promotion, he carries out his acts of genius while wearing a look of guilt that suggests he's not entirely sure he should even be there in the first place.
"He's a very timid person, hugely shy," adds Caioli. "I spoke to his best friend when he was a child, Cintia Arellano, and she told me he didn't speak at school. Even now, it's hard to tell what mood he's in." When he arrived at Barca as a 4ft 7in 13-year-old, his fellow under-graduates were bemused. "We thought he was mute," admitted Gerard Pique.
In the 10 years since his arrival at Barca's famed La Masia academy, Messi has let his feet do most of the talking. Today, the discussion over the identity of the world's finest player - for so long pitting Messi against Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, his polar opposite - barely exists; instead, the debate centres on whether Messi deserves to be bracketed with legends such as Pele, Maradona and Johan Cruyff.
"Yes, he is on his way to becoming one of the greats," said former Barca player and coach Cruyff last month. Even Maradona, not a man prone to extolling other people's virtues, has acknowledged Messi's threat: "Only at the end of history will we see who was the greatest, Maradona or Messi."
Even in my head, the question sounds stupid. "Can Lionel Messi get any better?"
The Argentine's biographer Luca Caioli thinks for a moment. "Messi's football is so good right now that the only person we have to compare him to is Diego Maradona, because like Maradona he can change the story of a match by himself," he says. "And if you look at Maradona, he was at his best in the 1986 World Cup, when he was 25. Messi is 23. So can Messi be better next year? Of course.
"No-one can really predict what will happen to this boy. Every trainer I interviewed for the book, from his first in Argentina - Salvador Ricardo Aparicio - to his Barca coaches Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola and his former Argentina boss Alfio Basile all told me the same thing: 'We don't know what the limit is for this kid'."
If the last three seasons are any guide, the sky is the limit for Lionel Andres Messi. Over that period, he has scored 137 goals in 158 games, becoming the youngest player to win the Ballon d'Or twice and helping Barcelona to three successive La Liga titles and the 2009 Champions League, along with several other trophies in the process.
On Saturday, with a heavy weight of expectation on his shoulders, Messi will lead Barca into battle at Wembley as they take on Manchester United in the Champions League final, a chance for the Blaugrana's number 10 to take himself and his all-star team a little further down the road to immortality.
Messi, Barca's leader by prolific example, is a phenomenon, a sportsman who does impossible things as a matter of course. It is perhaps more remarkable that in an age when many of his peers seem vaingloriously obsessed by self-promotion, he carries out his acts of genius while wearing a look of guilt that suggests he's not entirely sure he should even be there in the first place.
"He's a very timid person, hugely shy," adds Caioli. "I spoke to his best friend when he was a child, Cintia Arellano, and she told me he didn't speak at school. Even now, it's hard to tell what mood he's in." When he arrived at Barca as a 4ft 7in 13-year-old, his fellow under-graduates were bemused. "We thought he was mute," admitted Gerard Pique.
In the 10 years since his arrival at Barca's famed La Masia academy, Messi has let his feet do most of the talking. Today, the discussion over the identity of the world's finest player - for so long pitting Messi against Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, his polar opposite - barely exists; instead, the debate centres on whether Messi deserves to be bracketed with legends such as Pele, Maradona and Johan Cruyff.
"Yes, he is on his way to becoming one of the greats," said former Barca player and coach Cruyff last month. Even Maradona, not a man prone to extolling other people's virtues, has acknowledged Messi's threat: "Only at the end of history will we see who was the greatest, Maradona or Messi."
Messi's goalscoring record in the last three seasons is staggering. Pic credit: BBC
Barcelona wins 2011 Champions League title 3-1 [FULL HIGHLIGHTS] HD
I asked Roberto Carlos, who played directly against Messi several times, what he was like to face. "He has absolutely fantastic speed in the dribble," said the former Real Madrid left-back. "It was very, very hard to play against him. He is the best in the world no question, and he is young so he has plenty of time to improve too."
Argentina coach Sergio Batista is well versed in footballing legend. Given his history and his current job, the 48-year-old - a man who won the World Cup playing a supporting role alongside Maradona in 1986 - is superbly placed to discuss the planet's most talked-about sportsman.
"Leo is a virtuoso," Batista told me. "He does things with the ball that just seem impossible. He's got great ability. His control of the ball when he is running at high speed is excellent. He has a superb shot. There is precision in his passing. To summarise... he's got everything. He has every single attribute you would want to find in a player. That's the reason why he is the best footballer in the world."
I asked Batista to describe what it is like to take a training session comprising Messi. "He likes to be permanently in contact with the ball, of course," he says. "In every session he has the same enthusiasm and he is always one of the last to leave the pitch at the end. He likes to stay until after the finish, to have a play with the ball on his own or do some training exercises with the goalkeepers. He just loves to play."
And how we love to watch him. There are many different ways of enjoying sport, but I live in constant hope that one of the protagonists will take my breath away. I not only want them to do something I know I couldn't; I want them to do what I hadn't even imagined was possible.
Step forward Messi, sport's ultimate 21st century inventor. He creates space where there appears to be none; it often seems as though he is playing in a vacuum which no-one else can get close to, and when he gets in front of goal he finds new ways of putting the ball into the net. He doesn't just do things better than everyone else, he is now doing them with devastating relentlessness too.
He did not start his career as a striker, but Messi has scored 52 goals this season. We're talking about a half-century in a sport that is not supposed to deal in such figures. Fifties are the reserve of the batsman celebrating a run milestone in cricket, or the thrower checking out with a bull in darts. Before Messi, it was not considered possible in one of the best football leagues in the world. Before Messi, it wasn't possible.
Even in my head, the question sounds stupid. "Can Lionel Messi get any better?"
The Argentine's biographer Luca Caioli thinks for a moment. "Messi's football is so good right now that the only person we have to compare him to is Diego Maradona, because like Maradona he can change the story of a match by himself," he says. "And if you look at Maradona, he was at his best in the 1986 World Cup, when he was 25. Messi is 23. So can Messi be better next year? Of course.
"No-one can really predict what will happen to this boy. Every trainer I interviewed for the book, from his first in Argentina - Salvador Ricardo Aparicio - to his Barca coaches Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola and his former Argentina boss Alfio Basile all told me the same thing: 'We don't know what the limit is for this kid'."
If the last three seasons are any guide, the sky is the limit for Lionel Andres Messi. Over that period, he has scored 137 goals in 158 games, becoming the youngest player to win the Ballon d'Or twice and helping Barcelona to three successive La Liga titles and the 2009 Champions League, along with several other trophies in the process.
On Saturday, with a heavy weight of expectation on his shoulders, Messi will lead Barca into battle at Wembley as they take on Manchester United in the Champions League final, a chance for the Blaugrana's number 10 to take himself and his all-star team a little further down the road to immortality.
Messi, Barca's leader by prolific example, is a phenomenon, a sportsman who does impossible things as a matter of course. It is perhaps more remarkable that in an age when many of his peers seem vaingloriously obsessed by self-promotion, he carries out his acts of genius while wearing a look of guilt that suggests he's not entirely sure he should even be there in the first place.
"He's a very timid person, hugely shy," adds Caioli. "I spoke to his best friend when he was a child, Cintia Arellano, and she told me he didn't speak at school. Even now, it's hard to tell what mood he's in." When he arrived at Barca as a 4ft 7in 13-year-old, his fellow under-graduates were bemused. "We thought he was mute," admitted Gerard Pique.
In the 10 years since his arrival at Barca's famed La Masia academy, Messi has let his feet do most of the talking. Today, the discussion over the identity of the world's finest player - for so long pitting Messi against Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, his polar opposite - barely exists; instead, the debate centres on whether Messi deserves to be bracketed with legends such as Pele, Maradona and Johan Cruyff.
"Yes, he is on his way to becoming one of the greats," said former Barca player and coach Cruyff last month. Even Maradona, not a man prone to extolling other people's virtues, has acknowledged Messi's threat: "Only at the end of history will we see who was the greatest, Maradona or Messi."
Messi's goalscoring record in the last three seasons is staggering. Pic credit: BBC
I asked Roberto Carlos, who played directly against Messi several times, what he was like to face. "He has absolutely fantastic speed in the dribble," said the former Real Madrid left-back. "It was very, very hard to play against him. He is the best in the world no question, and he is young so he has plenty of time to improve too."
Argentina coach Sergio Batista is well versed in footballing legend. Given his history and his current job, the 48-year-old - a man who won the World Cup playing a supporting role alongside Maradona in 1986 - is superbly placed to discuss the planet's most talked-about sportsman.
"Leo is a virtuoso," Batista told me. "He does things with the ball that just seem impossible. He's got great ability. His control of the ball when he is running at high speed is excellent. He has a superb shot. There is precision in his passing. To summarise... he's got everything. He has every single attribute you would want to find in a player. That's the reason why he is the best footballer in the world."
I asked Batista to describe what it is like to take a training session comprising Messi. "He likes to be permanently in contact with the ball, of course," he says. "In every session he has the same enthusiasm and he is always one of the last to leave the pitch at the end. He likes to stay until after the finish, to have a play with the ball on his own or do some training exercises with the goalkeepers. He just loves to play."
And how we love to watch him. There are many different ways of enjoying sport, but I live in constant hope that one of the protagonists will take my breath away. I not only want them to do something I know I couldn't; I want them to do what I hadn't even imagined was possible.
Step forward Messi, sport's ultimate 21st century inventor. He creates space where there appears to be none; it often seems as though he is playing in a vacuum which no-one else can get close to, and when he gets in front of goal he finds new ways of putting the ball into the net. He doesn't just do things better than everyone else, he is now doing them with devastating relentlessness too.
He did not start his career as a striker, but Messi has scored 52 goals this season. We're talking about a half-century in a sport that is not supposed to deal in such figures. Fifties are the reserve of the batsman celebrating a run milestone in cricket, or the thrower checking out with a bull in darts. Before Messi, it was not considered possible in one of the best football leagues in the world. Before Messi, it wasn't possible.
Messi can be stopped - Ferdinand
True, Ronaldo has scored 53 times this season. But consider this: when Messi scored his second goal in the Bernabeu in Barca's Champions League tie at Real Madrid in April, it was his 52nd strike in 49 games. It all-but sealed a place in the Champions League final and Barca had already wrapped up a third successive La Liga title.
At the same time Ronaldo, who failed to get on the scoresheet in the semi-finals in Europe, had 42 goals in 49 games. In his last four La Liga games, with the title gone and Real out of Europe, Ronaldo has run riot, scoring 11 goals and reaching 40 in the league. Hugely impressive? Yes. Record-breaking? Yes. But there is an element of personal glory about it, as he and his team-mates - who have concentrated on helping Ronaldo - have conceded.
Messi, on the other hand, has gone without a goal since the colossal second he scored in the Bernabeu that night in April. As Barca took their foot off the accelerator the club's - and Messi's - focus turned to Saturday. "Goals are only important if they win you games," he says. "My interest is in the collective success of the team, not individual glory."
Messi, being kept fresh for Saturday's final, did not even feature in Barcelona's final two league games, his last appearance coming on 11 May in a 1-1 draw at Levante. He has been itching to get back on a football field, cutting a frustrated figure as he sat on the bench for the whole 90 minutes against Deportivo on 15 May.
I cast my mind back six years to another occasion when he sat on the Barca bench and what, in a footballing sense, is starting to feel like a JFK moment.
When Messi scored his first goal for Barca on 1 May, 2005, I was watching Barca-Albacete on TV at home. A routine 1-0 win for Barca seemed to be on the cards when manager Rijkaard threw on a fragile-looking 17-year-old in the 88th minute of the league contest.
Within two minutes of jogging on to the pitch Messi had a cute finish disallowed for a marginal offside and less than a minute later he had his goal - the precocious one belying his tender years to play a give-and-go with Ronaldinho, keep his composure and loft the ball sublimely over the on-rushing goalkeeper and into the net.
It was a thunderbolt moment; a handful of seconds etched into my consciousness, in the beginning thanks to the captivating nature of the cameo and now, six years later, for what it has come to represent: the first significant act of one of the finest footballers of them all.
Typically for one so humble, Messi recalls the day by paying tribute to Rijkaard: "I'll never forget the fact that he launched my career, that he had confidence in me while I was only 16 or 17."
Rijkaard wasn't the only one. Upon collecting his Ballon d'Or trophy in 2006, Ronaldinho gave the world notice of what was to come. "This award says I'm the best player in the world, but I'm not even the best player at Barcelona. Since he began to come and train with us we knew we would go down this path. Someday I will explain that I was at the birth of one of the footballing greats: Leo Messi."
Messi's career has since gone through the stratosphere. Trophies, awards, accolades, praise from peers and adulation from audiences everywhere has justly followed every goal he has scored and every beautiful moment he has created.
But where did his drive, his burning desire to succeed, come from? I asked Caioli, who spoke to the man himself as well as a collection of family, friends, coaches and colleagues to put together his book: 'The Inside Story of the Boy Who Became A Legend'.
"You cannot underestimate how much this boy wanted to become a footballer," said Caioli, who has also written books on Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldinho. "He took difficult, brave decisions. He left home when he was 13, a small boy, and accepted staying at Barca's academy at La Masia, thousands of miles away from his family in Argentina.
"But you can't possibly know you're going to become a footballer. You can lose, no? He had the will to try, he had the determination to succeed. This passion he has for the game, it is so pervasive it enables him to put everything else in his life to one side."
It is just as well that Messi does not let outside influences effect him. He has been called a "genius" by Maradona, a "sensation" by Cruyff and a "PlayStation footballer" by Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger. "Once, they said they can only stop me with a pistol - but you need a machine gun to stop him," said Barca legend Hristo Stoichkov. After a Messi exhibition in one game last year, Real Zaragoza's Ander Herrera went further: "I'm not sure he's human."
On Saturday, Messi will be hoping to score his first goal on English soil and have another decisive say on European football's annual showpiece. After a disappointing 2010 World Cup he will have to wait another three years to deliver on the biggest stage of all, but a global audience of hundreds of millions provides him with a significant platform in the interim.
Messi's place in the pantheon of greats is already assured; the only question now is whether he can reach the summit. On Saturday night, we may be a little closer to finding out. "I don't obsess about being the best in the world," said Messi in an interview once. But then again, he doesn't have to.
21.42 "At 1-1 we genuinely thought we could win the game," a dishevelled and hollow-looking Rio Ferdinand says. "But we got hit with a bit of a sucker punch. A couple of their goals were preventable, but you've got to give credit when it's due." Has he ever faced a side that good before? "Not in terms of keeping the ball. We had a gameplan today that we thought could beat them. Tonight, it just wasn't to be."
21.40Nemanja Vidic is cornered on the pitch and asked whether Barcelona were simply too good for them. "When you come to the final, you want to win. We didn't win today, but we have to say tonight that Barcelona played some good football. They had more chances than we did. And they were better than us tonight."
21.37 The Barcelona players are milling about on the pitch, embracing each other. Sir Alex, meanwhile, is standing alone. Listless and alone on the Wembley turf. That's some image.
21.35 Those of you who were able to witness that, that was one of the finest performances you will see by a football team in a game of this magnitude. Wembley has been blessed with the pitter-patter of Catalan feet tonight, and for United there is no shame at all in being beaten by this side.
Labour leader Ed Miliband and his long-term partner Justine Thornton are due to get married. They already have two children, so why get hitched?
For many people having a child is the ultimate commitment to a partner. A life you have created together and are responsible for raising.
It's a commitment many people make without getting married. But some then go on to tie the knot, like Ed Miliband and his partner of six years, Justine Thornton. Why?
There are the obvious financial and legal advantages to getting married. For older people issues surrounding pensions and inheritance are often the reason they decide to get hitched after years together. But Miliband and Thornton are still young.
And while the pressures on the leader of the Labour party will be slightly different to those of the average person, there is no mistaking that attitudes to marriage and family have changed. Getting married used to be about sex, living together and having children, but research shows this is no longer the case.
I didn't feel I need a bit of paper to make my relationship secure. Having children is a far bigger sign of commitment to someone. There was no pressure from my partner, in fact we never talked about it. Our families weren't bothered either.
For me a big part of it was the children. I didn't want them to be asked at school why their parents weren't married. I suppose you could say that was me feeling a slight pressure to conform to social norms, but if I hadn't wanted to do it anyway I wouldn't have.
I proposed on Christmas Day and put the ring in a cracker. It was a surprise and I wanted it to be romantic.
After that we got married quickly. I don't understand people who are engaged for years and years. Then I think the ring is like a form of hush money, given to keep people quiet. I find that weirder than getting married after kids.
Chris, 41, from Northampton
According to the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) Survey, which was conducted in 2008, almost two-thirds of people now see little difference between marriage and living together. Fewer than a fifth of people took issue with it.
Just under half thought cohabitation showed just as much commitment as getting married. When it comes to children, where opinion can often be a bit more traditional, only 28% said they believe married couples make better parents.
So why do it? Psychologist Donna Dawson, who has specialised in sex and relationships, says it is often about making a public statement.
"Having the children take part is like a ceremonial creation of a family and a public statement that they are all in it together. It's very much a 21st Century ritual, which more and more people will be doing."
She says even when couples say there isn't a specific reason, there is "always something going on underneath".
"Sometimes it is about marking a different stage in a relationship, or they might have taken a long time because of the bad example they were set by their own parents. There is usually a reason, even if they are not fully aware of it."
Chris, 41, and his partner were together for nine years and had two children when they got married. He didn't feel any direct pressure from his partner or family, but says as his children got older he wanted them to have parents who were married.
"For me a big part of it was the children," he says. "I didn't want them to be asked at school why their parents weren't married. I suppose you could say that was me feeling a slight pressure to conform to social norms, but if I hadn't wanted to get married in the first place I definitely wouldn't have done it."
But people who get married after having children could actually be the traditionalists. Historically, the UK has a long tradition of informal "marriages" that were recognised by the community, says Penny Mansfield, director of the relationship research organisation One Plus One.
'Golden age'
"If you cohabited or had children together you were as good as married in everyone's eyes. It's only after the introduction of the Hardwicke Marriage Act in 1753 that marriage became a legal concept and unmarried couples became stigmatised."
She says the "golden age" of marriage was as recent as the 1960s and 70s, when more people got married than ever before. Marriage was seen as a passport to adulthood, when you were allowed to have sex and live together.
In 2009 231,490 marriages were registered in England and Wales
It was the lowest number since 1895
The long-term picture for UK weddings is of decline, from a peak of 480,285 marriages in 1972
Source: ONS
"Obviously, people wanted that freedom as soon as they could," says Mansfield. "The average age of people getting married was 21 for women and 23 for men. Now you can put a decade on those ages and that's because sex and cohabitation outside of marriage are largely accepted.
"Now I think people get married after the house and kids because it is very much a public celebration of what they have, rather than the passport to adulthood."
Guardian columnist Zoe Williams has been with her partner for six years and has two children - just like Miliband and Thornton - but says she thinks it is a "weird gesture" to get married at this stage.
"It's now socially acceptable to have sex, live together and have kids outside of marriage, so why spend £10,000 or more on a wedding?" she says.
"Having kids is a much bigger deal than marriage, a much bigger statement of commitment. Personally, I just don't think about getting married. I simply have never felt a need to be married."
In the end it could all be about having a big party for Ed and Justine. According to BSA survey, 53% of people now think a wedding is more about a celebration than a life-long commitment.
US President Barack Obama is wrapping up his six-day European tour in Warsaw, meeting Polish political leaders.
The meetings will focus on defence and energy issues but Mr Obama will also seek to reassure Poles unhappy at his shelving of his predecessor's missile defence shield.
On Friday Mr Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and visited the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial.
He also attended a dinner with 20 central and eastern European leaders.
Shale gas
The BBC's Stephen Evans in Warsaw says Polish leaders hope Mr Obama will rectify what many saw as a slight when Mr Obama cancelled President George W Bush's missile shield plan.
Our correspondent says Polish leaders were disappointed when President Obama decided not to go ahead with the shield on Polish soil, reading it as deference to Russia and as a sign of a lack of commitment to Poland.
Mr Obama will meet President Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Saturday.
The US has announced at least one new initiative on security.
White House national security official, Liz Sherwood Randall, travelling with Mr Obama, said a US air detachment would be set up in Poland.
The breadth of the US-Polish agenda speaks volumes as to the increasing significance of Poland as a European actor, both within Nato, and the European Union”
"It will be a small permanent presence on the ground and then a rotational presence that will be more substantial," she said.
However, Mr Obama has not granted Poland's desire for a visa waiver for its citizens travelling to the US.
One key area under discussion will be energy.
Poland has reserves of shale which hold natural gas.
Our correspondent says Germany and Russia do not want those reserves opened up, Germany for environmental reasons and Russia perhaps because it currently exports much gas to the whole region.
He says the hope in Warsaw is that Mr Obama will support the opening of the shale reserves, ideally with the help of American energy companies.
On Friday evening, Mr Obama told the gathered eastern and central European leaders: "We have taken great inspiration from the blossoming of freedom and economic growth in this region and we're confident that will continue and we want to be a part of that process of strengthening your democracies, strengthening your economies and to be a full partner.
Mr Obama visited Warsaw's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
"I hope that... this [meeting] signifies how important we consider our relationship with central and eastern Europe".
Earlier in the day, Mr Obama placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw.
He also greeted Holocaust survivors at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes.
Hours before Mr Obama's arrival, Polish headlines were dominated by reports that Solidarity founder Lech Walesa was refusing to meet him.
Mr Walesa said he feared such a meeting would only be a "photo opportunity", amid reports that he was offended for not being offered a one-on-one meeting with the US president.
"I believe one day I will meet with Obama but not this time," Mr Walesa told AFP news agency.
He wished the US president "very well", then added, "but sometimes things just don't work out".
TORONTO — National Bank of Canada reported a higher quarterly profit on Thursday, driven largely by growth in its lending and wealth management businesses.
The Montreal-based bank, which also raised its quarterly dividend payout, announced a long anticipated move to acquire all the common shares of Wellington West that it does not own.
Wellington is an employee-owned firm that has become one of the largest full-service wealth management firms in Canada with over $10-billion in assets under administration.
“This highly strategic acquisition will contribute to the continued growth of National Bank’s wealth management platform,” said Luc Paiement head of National Bank’s wealth management arm. “It also aligns with National Bank’s strategy to increase its scale and presence outside of Quebec.”
The transaction values Wellington West at $333-million, including excess cash of $74-million. Excluding National’s current ownership of about 18%, the amount payable to Wellington West shareholders is $273-million.
The net outlay for the acquisition is about $199-million after deducting the excess cash acquired as part of the deal, said National Bank in a statement.
The closing of the transaction, anticipated for July 2011, remains subject to the approval of Wellington West shareholders and regulators.
National Bank’s earnings excluding one-time items in the quarter ended April 30 rose 13% to $295-million, or $1.69 a share, from a profit of $261-million, or $1.50, a year earlier.
Analysts on average had forecast earnings of $1.68, according to Thomson Reuters.
While earnings were strong, investors are more likely to focus on the Wellington West acquisition and the dividend increase, said Barclays analyst John Aiken.
“We would anticipate both these issues to be received reasonably favourably, although they should not be too much of a surprise to the market,” he said in a note to clients.
The bank raised its quarterly dividend payout 8% to 71 cents a share, from 66 cents a share.
(Reuters) - The former boyfriend of accused murderer Casey Anthony denied on Thursday that she ever told him her father molested her.
Tony Lazzaro, who was dating Casey when her 2-year-old daughter died in June 2008, said her description of her relationship with George Anthony "definitely was not sexual abuse."
"Hitting is all I can remember," Lazzaro said. "To my knowledge, it sounded like discipline to me."
The ex-boyfriend's testimony appeared to be a blow to the defense trial strategy in Casey Anthony's first-degree murder case.
The 25-year-old Florida woman faces the death penalty if convicted of charges that she killed her daughter on June 16, 2008, by wrapping the toddler's face and head three times with duct tape and dumping her body in woods near the Anthony home.
Earlier this week, defense attorney Jose Baez told jurors the Casey was sexually molested by her father as a child.
Baez said that abuse explained her "bizarre" behavior, including carefree partying and shopping sprees, after daughter Caylee Anthony's death.
Lazzaro was called to testify on Thursday out of the presence of the jury about a "secret" Baez previously told jurors Casey shared with Lazzaro but the judge had refused to let the jury hear.
Lazzaro said Casey did tell him about an incident in the past when another young Anthony relative had tried unsuccessfully to "feel her up" or touch her chest, but did not implicate her father.
During the testimony, George Anthony, who under oath has denied any abuse, and his wife Cindy sat in the back row of the Orlando courtroom. As court adjourned, Casey and Cindy looked across the room and held each other's gaze.
Afterward, Baez kept walking and did not respond to a question by Reuters about whether Lazzaro's testimony had damaged the defense's case.
'SUCH A GOOD LIAR'
Caylee Anthony was not reported missing until July 15, 2008, a month after she died. After finding Casey's car in an impound lot, Cindy Anthony called 911 and famously told the dispatcher the trunk smelled like a dead body.
The defense contends George Anthony found Caylee drowned in the family's backyard pool on June 16 but no one reported the accident.
More prosecution witnesses on Thursday described Casey as emotionally unchanged after Caylee's death. Friends and Lazzaro have described how Casey told them Caylee was on a variety of outings with a nanny or a baby sitter.
Prosecutors said Casey lied to her mother that she and Caylee were in Tampa and Jacksonville.
An acquaintance, Melissa England, said Casey took a phone call on a shopping trip, then tossed her cell phone on the dashboard and said, "Oh my God, I am such a good liar."
Sitting at the defense table, Casey shook her head and mouthed the word "no."
Both George Anthony and Lazzaro testified they smelled gas fumes but no odor of decay when Casey opened her car trunk in their presence a week after Caylee's death.
But a prosecution expert is expected to testify analysis of air from the trunk was consistent with human decomposition.
Such evidence has never before been admitted in a trial, and defense attorneys fought unsuccessfully to keep it out on grounds it is unproven science.
Legal experts have said the issue is a sure-fire point for appeal should Casey be found guilty.
Baez grilled George Anthony about duct tape on a gas can he kept in a shed, one of the same cans that had been in Casey's trunk.
The tape is important: It is the same distinctive brand found wrapped around Caylee's skull when her remains were located December 11, 2008, and connects the killer to the Anthony home.
George said he believed he taped a hole in the can to keep fumes from escaping after Casey lost a cap. He denied Baez's suggestion he placed tape on the can knowing it would become a significant piece of evidence.
Another former boyfriend of Casey's identified a photo that he placed on his MySpace page around March 2008.
The photo, captioned "Win her over ... with Chloroform," shows a man nuzzling a woman and holding a cloth near her face. Ricardo Morales said he thought it was funny at the time.
His posting occurred at about the same time prosecutors say Casey Anthony Googled "chloroform" on her home computer. Prosecution experts are expected to testify that they found evidence of a large amount of chloroform in Casey's car trunk.
10:36 PM
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