Coca-Cola announces new CEO, Babcock chief exec to retire
London’s FTSE 100 is seen starting 35 points lower than Wednesday’s close at 5,955.
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Babcock has announced that group chief executive Peter Rogers will retire from the company at the end of August.
Rogers has been leading the company since August 2003, growing it from a small cap business to a FTSE 100 giant.
Marine & Technology division chief executive Archie Bethel will take over as group chief executive at the beginning of September.
He will also take up the role of chief operating officer at the beginning of April to ensure a smooth transition.
One David was out, and another one in at Coca-Cola HBC on Thursday, with the announcement that the company's chairman, George A. David, has stepped down with immediate effect.
The FTSE 100 Coca-Cola bottler said George David would remain on the board until the company's annual general meeting in June, at which point he would retire from the company.
Coca-Cola Hellenic also announced the appointment of its current Vice Chairman, Anastassis G. David, to the role of Chairman until the AGM, at which point he would be proposed for election by shareholders.
In the press
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Officials from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are heading to Azerbaijan to discuss a possible $4bn emergency loan package in what risks becoming the first of a series of bailouts stemming from the tumbling oil price. The Baku visit, which follows a currency crisis triggered by the collapse in crude, comes amid concern at the two global institutions over emerging market producers from central Asia to Latin America.- Financial Times
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US close
US stocks finished the session lower, with traders piling on the pressure following a non-committal policy statement from the US Federal Reserve as losses in shares of Apple weighed on all three of the main US market gauges.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.38% or 223 points to 15,944, alongside declines of 1.08% and 2.18% for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite, respectively.
While the Federal Open Market Committee kept the range for the Fed funds rate unchanged at between 0.25% and 0.50%, investors appeared to react poorly to the prospect that short-term interest rates might still be headed higher when the Fed next met in March.