Poor ticket sales cancel The Voice UK Live tour - BBC News
The 11-date tour for The Voice UK Live has been cancelled due to a lack of ticket sales.
The gigs were due to feature eight of the show's finalists.
The Voice UK Live tour was to begin at the Bournemouth International Centre on 12 September and was then due to visit venues in Cardiff, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, London, Glasgow and Sheffield.
Organisers say fans with tickets for the cancelled dates can get a refund.
A number of ticket outlets had only cited five dates as being axed earlier today (18 June), but organisers have confirmed that none of the scheduled dates will be going ahead.
In a statement, a spokesperson said: "Unfortunately, The Voice UK Live has been cancelled due to lack of ticket sales.
"Customers are advised to contact their point of purchase for ticket refunds."
The news comes as the show was criticised for failing to attract viewers.
Episodes of The Voice consistently attracted average audiences of more than 10 million in April, but the ratings had dropped to 4.5 million later in the series.
More than seven million people tuned in to watch 28-year-old Leanne Mitchell, from Lowestoft in Suffolk, be crowned the show's first winner.
Her single, a cover of Whitney Houston's Run To You, failed to make it into the top 40 of the Official Chart.
UPDATE 1-Greek bank bad loans seen at 30 bln eur- banker - Reuters UK
(Adds quotes, cenbank comment, background)
* Central bank to release Blackrock findings in near future
* Estimated 30 bln euro loan impairments next 3 years
* Amount includes 18 bln eur provisions already booked
ATHENS, June 19 (Reuters) - Greek banks stand to lose 30 billion euros from impaired loans in the next three years according to stress simulations of their loan books by Blackrock Solutions, Greece's former IMF representative said on Tuesday.
Greek banks have been battered by the country's severe debt crisis and a protracted, deep recession which has caused an increase in non-performing loans as unemployment has hit record highs near 23 percent.
Blackrock was hired by the Bank of Greece, the country's central bank, to conduct an independent diagnostic study on bank loan books under stress conditions to assess loan quality going forward and help determine provisioning needs.
"The expected losses (for Greek banks) from impaired loans were set by Blackrock, based on stress scenarios, at 30 billion euros in the next three years," Panagiotis Roumeliotis, non-executive vice chairman at Piraeus Bank, said in a speech to a risk conference.
Roumeliotis said the figure he mentioned in his speech included sums already set aside by banks as buffers for bad loans.
"Banks have already booked provisions, about 18 billion euros. These are included in the 30 billion euro estimate," Roumeliotis, who was appointed Greece's representative to the IMF in February 2010 and joined Piraeus in December 2011, told Reuters.
The Bank of Greece declined to comment and said the Blackrock findings would be released soon.
"The Bank of Greece will release the Blackrock report in the near future in cooperation with the (EU/ECB/IMF) troika," an official at the central bank said.
The ratio of non-performming loans on Greek banks' loan books reached 15.9 percent at the end-December 2011, the central bank has said.
Greece's 215 billion euro economy is seen contracting for a fifth straight year in 2012. The latest forecasts by the Bank of Greece and the OECD see gross domestic product (GDP) shrinking 5.0-5.3 percent this year. (Reporting by George Georgiopoulos)
G-Mac wants Claret Jug but Simpson may skip Open - ESPN.co.uk
Graeme McDowell is hoping to bounce back from his US Open disappointment by winning the Open Championship at Royal Lytham & St Annes next month.
McDowell, the 2010 US Open champion, fell narrowly short in his bid to win the title for the second time in three years at Olympic Club last weekend - coming up a shot shy as 26-year-old American Webb Simpson claimed his maiden major title.
While disappointed to miss out on victory having held a share of the lead going into the final round, McDowell has taken the positives from the performance and has now set his sights on winning the Claret Jug next month.
"I will probably take a week off now and go to Lytham and prepare," McDowell said. "I fancy a run at that Claret Jug, I do."
He added: "I will take away a large cheque and am probably very close to locking my Ryder Cup place, which is more important to me.
"It has reinforced to me that I can compete and win more major championships. It's been a frustrating five or six weeks for me, but I knew in my heart that my game was better than my results were showing and it was just great to come in this week, prepare, try my best and compete."
The story is different for Simpson, however, who may not tee it up in Blackpool at all. His wife is expecting their second child in August, and the North Carolina native hinted he will not risk being stranded overseas if there is any possibility she could go into labour prematurely.
"I don't know about Lytham," Simpson said. "We met with our doctor before this week, just to see if my wife, Dowd, could come. The next eight weeks are going to be up in the air. We're going to see what we can do.
"It will all be kind of game-time decision for us."
Simpson became the 15th different first-time major winner in a row, indicating the competitive nature of professional golf at the moment. He believes that is an indication of the greater quality of tournament fields, rather than an indictment of the lack of a bona fide dominant superstar - like Tiger Woods, for example - in the game.
"I think the game's changing. My caddie and I were talking this week, the 14-year-old kid [Andy Zhang] was here, Beau Hossler was playing so well. I couldn't imagine playing in even a qualifier for this tournament when I was in high school," he said.
"But I think the Tiger effect of inspiring people to play at a younger age, and I think the access to golf has gotten so much bigger that the game is changing. Even in college, I would have been scared to death to play in a US Open. And these guys are playing like they're trying to win the tournament.
"So I think the game will continue to evolve like that. I'm lucky because I feel like we're playing at a time where golf is at its best."
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
UPDATE 3-Jefferies results beat as fixed income shines - Reuters UK
* Q1 EPS $0.28 vs $0.36
* Revenue falls 2 pct
* Fixed income rev up 31 pct; investment banking down 10 pct
* Asset management fees, income from funds down 82 pct
* Shares rise 3 pct (Adds details from conference call, analyst comments, updates share movement)
By Tanya Agrawal
June 19 (Reuters) - Investment bank Jefferies Group Inc's profit beat muted Wall Street expectations, helped by a strong performance by its fixed income business as investors sought safety in bonds.
As the first investment bank to report earnings, Jefferies is often viewed as an indicator for larger Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs Group and Morgan Stanley.
Analysts have cut their targets on several investment banks over the last two months due to weak equity markets and a growing crisis in Europe.
Jefferies has been looking to expand overseas and is reportedly planning to establish a European financing arm this year in an effort to grab market share from rivals scaling back corporate lending.
"In Europe, we're seeing capital markets start to take share from the banks in terms of debt financing and that's definitely something that is giving us some momentum in investment banking and fixed income in that region," a company executive said in a post-earnings conference call with analysts.
Although Jefferies' fixed income business held up well during the quarter, its investment banking and asset management business failed to live up to the expectations.
Fixed income revenue rose 31 percent to $293 million, while investment banking revenue fell 10 percent to $297 million.
(For a Breakingviews column on Jefferies )
The midsized investment bank earned $63.5 million, or 28 cents per share, compared with $80.6 million, or 36 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 2 percent to $711 million.
Excluding items related to its acquisition of historic British stockbroker Hoare Govett from Royal Bank of Scotland and other items, the company earned 31 cents per share.
Analysts had expected the company to earn 28 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
"It's earnings won't really see any momentum on the upside till the fall, because it will be unable to outperform the weak markets," said Richard Bove, analyst with Rochdale Securities.
Jefferies shares had come under intense pressure after brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd filed for bankruptcy in October 2011 as investors worried that Jefferies might have similar troubles.
The company has since taken steps to boost investor confidence by selling billions of dollars worth of Greek, Irish, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish debt in a matter of days.
Shares of the New-York based company, which have fallen about 6 percent since the beginning of the year, rose 3 percent to $13.53 on Tuesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bangalore; Editing by Supriya Kurane)
FOREX-Euro rises on Greek news; dollar down ahead of Fed - Reuters
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Calvin Harris denies Rita Ora claims over Call My Name - BBC News
Calvin Harris says claims from Rita Ora that she was offered Cheryl's number one single Call My Name first is "disrespectful".
The track was originally written by Harris and sold more than 152,000 copies to launch it to number one in the Official Top 40 chart.
But Harris took to Twitter to rebuff Ora's claims, saying: "For the record, Call My Name was never given to Rita Ora to sing...she made that up, don't know why?"
Rita Ora's comments have now been removed from Twitter.
When asked by someone on Twitter what proof he had, the I'm Not Alone singer also tweeted: "Coz I did that song."
"I was setting the record straight as you didn't at the time," he later added. "It was a disrespectful comment to make, that's all."
Rita then tweeted: "I hate beef and fighting.. So I love u all @calvinharris call me I'll explain what actually happened they twisted it and congratulations. X"
This is not the first time the 28-year-old has taken to a social network to defend his material.
He accused R&B singer Chris Brown of theft after the star used his music in his single Yeah x3.
Brown later apologised and credited half the track to Harris.
TEXT-Fitch cuts Fairhold Securitisation, revises outlook to stable - Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
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