Bosses at BG Group have decided to give up their bonuses on the back of a sharp decline in the stock late last year, reports The Times. According to the firm’s annual report, John Hood, Chairman of the remuneration committee, said that it would be inappropriate to give extra payouts due to the share price fall and BG’s expected production growth in 2013.
The Kremlin revealed on Thursday night that Royal Dutch Shell is close to an Arctic oil exploration deal with Russia’s Gazprom Neft, according to The Telegraph. “The agreement will be announced next week when Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the Netherlands, where the Anglo-Dutch company is headquartered,” the paper says.
“Hewlett-Packard’s chairman and its longest-serving directors resigned from their positions on Thursday in a delayed reaction to last year’s disastrous $8.8bn writedown relating to the company’s $11bn acquisition of Autonomy,” says the Financial Times. Ray Lane, who narrowly avoided being voted off the board at a meeting two weeks ago, will be replaced as Chairman temporarily by activist investor Ralph Whitworth, HP’s fifth Chairman in a decade.
A parliamentary commission has found that three executive who ran HOBS bank in the lead up to its collapse have been blamed for their “colossal failure” of management, writes The Guardian. The report says that the bank would have gone bust even if the global financial crisis of 2008 had not happened, as it racked up £47bn of losses on bad loans.
Facebook last night launched the its new “super app” last night to make Android smartphones more Facebook-centric by replacing the home screen with photos and status updates from the social network site, writes Financial Times. “The design laid to rest speculation that Facebook would build its own phone or its own operating system, a move chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has long denied that the company will pursue,” the paper says.
HMV was said to last night be on the verge of a £50m rescue from specialist restructuring group Hilco, which looks to restore the fortunes of firms in “distressed business situations”, according to The Independent. The move could save 2,500 jobs at the High Street music and entertainment retailer.