LONDON (Reuters) – AstraZeneca (AZN.L: Quote, Profile, Research) is dusting off its cheque book. The country’s second biggest drugmaker has bought nothing for more than $400 million (253 million pounds) since its 2007 purchase of U.S. biotechnology company MedImmune for $15.6 billion — an overpriced flop that has failed to deliver.

Now, its drug pipeline down to a trickle, the company is venturing back into the market and aiming for multiple low-billion-dollar deals.

LONDON, March 5 (Reuters) – Resentment at the European
Central Bank’s immunity from losses on Greek debt has left fund
firms wondering about the strength of their creditor rights and
whether they should blacklist bonds purchased during emergency
sprees by the lender of last resort.

By sidestepping markdowns on Greek bonds, the ECB has
effectively robbed fellow senior creditors of their top rank
status, investors say, forcing each to forgive a greater
proportion of the debt than they might otherwise have needed to.

LONDON (Reuters) – The crackdown against tax avoidance could land the authorities with legal bills bigger than the income they recover as rich individuals, exploiting loopholes of the taxman’s own making, head to the courts to fight their corner, experts warn.

Recent scrutiny of banks and footballers has highlighted tax agencies’ over-reliance on taxpayers who confess to finding flaws in legislation and the aggressive retroactive moves against anyone who has dared to cash in on those mistakes.

LONDON (Reuters) – The government’s crackdown against tax avoidance could land the authorities with legal bills bigger than the income they recover as rich individuals, exploiting loopholes of the taxman’s own making, head to the courts to fight their corner, experts warn.

Recent scrutiny of banks and footballers has highlighted British tax agencies’ over-reliance on taxpayers who confess to finding flaws in legislation and the aggressive retroactive moves against anyone who has dared to cash in on those mistakes.

LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – Britain’s crackdown against
tax avoidance could land the authorities with legal bills bigger
than the income they recover as rich individuals, exploiting
loopholes of the taxman’s own making, head to the courts to
fight their corner, experts warn.

Recent scrutiny of banks and footballers has highlighted
British tax agencies’ over-reliance on taxpayers who confess to
finding flaws in legislation and the aggressive retroactive
moves against anyone who has dared to cash in on those mistakes.

LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. fund managers who successfully called the bottom of their home credit market in 2008 are starting to put money back into Europe in a sign of returning confidence in the euro zone.

These investors say distance is making it easier to price risk and estimate the recovery value of European assets. Their European counterparts, bruised by the region’s two-year-old debt crisis, are proving far more reticent.

LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. fund managers who successfully called the bottom of their home credit market in 2008 are starting to put money back into Europe in a sign of returning confidence in the euro zone.

These investors say distance is making it easier to price risk and estimate the recovery value of European assets. Their European counterparts, bruised by the region’s two-year-old debt crisis, are proving far more reticent.

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) – Western investors in Japan’s disgraced Olympus have accused its banks of trying to take control of the boardroom by stealth, amid media reports that the firm’s major creditors are set to install their own appointees in the top jobs.

Foreign investors in the maker of cameras and medical equipment, engulfed last year by a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, have been arguing for a complete renewal of the board, which would include outside talent unconnected to Olympus, its creditors or major owners.

LONDON/TOKYO, Feb 21 (Reuters) – Western investors in
Japan’s disgraced Olympus have accused its banks of
trying to take control of the boardroom by stealth, amid media
reports that the firm’s major creditors are set to install their
own appointees in the top jobs.

Foreign investors in the maker of cameras and medical
equipment, engulfed last year by a $1.7 billion accounting
fraud, have been arguing for a complete renewal of the board,
including outside talent untainted by the scandal.

LONDON, Feb 20 (Reuters) – A wave of very cheap money
from the European Central Bank may have averted a credit crunch,
but it has sown confusion among Europe’s bankers over how
profitable their business really is.

Banks need a fundamental rethink of their business models
for a future in which 489 billion euros that the European
Central Bank (ECB) has pumped into the system are no longer
available, in three years’ time. The ECB is expected to repeat
the offer of cheap money next week, possibly for the last time.