Newspaper round-up: 18 July 2007

The Daily Mail reports on the highest ever profits made by JCB. The plant giant said pre-tax profit hit £149m on sales of £1.75bn and machine sales jumped to more than 55,000 compared with 45,000 in 2005.

The Daily Mail also reports that two prominent property developers are competing over a £4bn scheme to transform London’s rundown Elephant & Castle into 170 acres of smart shops and flats. St Modwen, the developer rebuilding the old MG Rover site in Longbridge, and Lend Lease, the Australian company in charge of creating the Olympic village, will hear next Tuesday which one of them has won the deal, which has been in the offing for seven years.

Haig Simonian comments on the cement market in the Financial Times. Cemex and Heidelberg may need longer than Lafarge and Holcim to digest their latest acquisitions, given the likely need to improve management structures and corporate governance to match their new global goals, he commented. But smaller acquisitions are likely across the board given that the top four account for only 20% to 25% of a fragmented 2.5bn tonnes-a-year cement market.