Business News

All that snow seems to have caused a few problems for the airport company BAA who whilst reporting a 9% rise in earnings to £967m also reports losses for 2010 at £317m, after a year of disruptions, compared to a loss of £822m recorded a year earlier. So losing less money then - wish I could say the same for fewer lost bags...or is that just my family?

When times are hard, some people turn to drink...global drinks company Diageo has agreed to buy Turkish spirits company Mey Icki (you have to over 21 just to enter their website!) for £1.3bn in a deal that would give access to an estimated 50,000 retail outlets in the country and nearly an 80% share of the Turkish market for aniseed-based spirit Raki, considered to be the national drink. So a little more rocking the cash bar rather than the Kasbah - but you really have to admit to being over 21.

Give me oil in my lamp as Royal Dutch Shell begins to get out of Africa, selling the majority of its shareholdings in its African businesses for £617m, to Vitol, the world’s largest oil trader, and Helios Investment Partners, an Africa-focused private equity group. Meanwhile BP has agreed a 30% stake in oil and gas blocks controlled by Reliance Industries in India in a deal worth £4.4bn.

Turning to energy giants BHP Billiton has agreed to purchase all of Chesapeake Energy’s interests in the Fayetteville Shale, Arkansas for £2.9bn; the Anglo-Australian miner said it expected to fund the acquisition from its cash resources (rather than those it can dig up) in a strategy to expand its shale gas business. Shale gas is....

Wal-Mart "save money, live better" reported another drop in sales - for Q4 by 1.8% in the US, the seventh quarterly decline in a row, with a net income of £3.8bn, up from £3bn a year earlier; the retail giant’s net income for 2010 was £10.4bn, up from £9.2bn 2009. Suggesting a formula of fewer sales and higher revenue, so Wal-Mart must be living better then.