French shopping centre owner Klepierre raised its takeover offer for rival Hammerson, but the London-listed company said it still undervalued its worth and advised shareholders to reject it.

The crisis engulfing Pearson deepened after the education company cut its profit forecast and predicted years of gloom in the US market, forcing it to slash its dividend and put its stake in the famous Penguin Random House book business up for sale to raise cash.

The first well to be drilled at the highly anticipated Dunquin oil and gas prospect off the Kerry coast has been abandoned, sending shares in the field’s Irish stakeholder — Providence Resources — plummeting by nearly 10%.

British housebuilders received a Budget boost today after Chancellor George Osborne delivered a raft of measures to help Britons get on the housing ladder.

Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world’s biggest brewer, hasreported an unexpected decline in second-quarter volume and lower profit as sales fell in the US and Europe.

The Barryroe oil field could be four times larger than initially thought and contain anything between 1bn and 1.6bn barrels of oil.

Fresh estimates concerning how much oil exists at the Barryroe field, off the Cork coast, have hinted at around one billion barrels, three times higher than previous expectations.

PROVIDENCE Resources, a Dublin-based energy explorer, may bring Celtic Sea crude ashore by 2013 as it seeks to make the first profitable Irish oilfield, said chief executive Tony O’Reilly.

The London market made nervous gains today as traders waited for the details of a eurozone rescue plan set to be hammered out a crunch meeting of politicians.

Consumer confidence in the UK is on the up thanks to expectations that interest rates will remain low for at least six months, according to a survey.