Digital move sees historic film lab close

The move to digital will soon see Sir Peter Jackson close an historic 35mm film processing laboratory at Park Road Post Production. Park Road’s film processing lab dates back to 1941, when it was first established in Wellington as part of the government-owned National Film Unit

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Lloyds results stung by bad loans at HBOS

Lloyds Banking Group Wednesday reported a loss of £4 billion ($6.8 billion) for the first half of 2009 — much of it incurred from its takeover of troubled UK rival HBOS earlier in the year. The banking group took a charge of $22.8 billion, mainly for bad loans — 80 percent of which came from HBOS. “Our first half loss was driven by the high levels of impairment,” Group Chief Executive J Eric Daniels said in a statement.

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SEC Settlement May Threaten Bank of America’s CEO

Kenneth Lewis’ days as chief executive of Bank of America may finally be numbered. Observers and investors say a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission may ultimately cost Lewis the top job at the nation’s largest bank. On Monday, the bank agreed to pay $33 million to settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that Lewis and other executives misled the bank’s investors prior to its $50 billion purchase last year of brokerage firm Merrill Lynch.

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Football: Inter plan Ibrahimovic swap for Eto’o

Inter Milan are offering their star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic in a swap deal with Barcelona which would see Samuel Eto’o move in the other direction. Club president Massimo Moratti met his Barca counterpart Juan Laporta on Thursday night and told his side’s official Web site that the switch had been the discussed. Moratti said they had met to complete the transfer of Brazilian defender Maxwell to the Bernabeu from Inter

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UK government takes majority stake in bank

The UK government confirmed Saturday that it will take majority control of Lloyds Banking Group, with the taxpayer owning 65 percent of voting shares in return for insuring £260 billion ($366 billion) of the group’s toxic assets. The British Press Association reported that the deal with the Treasury would see Lloyds commit to lend at least £28 billion ($40 billion) over the next two years.

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