Tom Purves

Aircraft engine maker Rolls-Royce rebounded into profit during the first half of 2011, aided by a record order book despite defence spending cutbacks in Britain, it said on Thursday. Net profit hit £842 million ($1.4 billion, 960 million euros) in the six months to the end of June, after a post tax loss of £334 million in the same period of last year, Rolls-Royce announced in a results statement. Revenue eased one percent to £5.36 billion, but the group's order book climbed four percent to a...Read Full Story

Qantas said on Wednesday it had reached a $100 million settlement with engine maker Rolls-Royce over a mid-air blast that forced the grounding of the Australian flag carrier's entire A380 fleet. The deal led the airline to increase its profit forecast for the year ending in June despite being hit by natural disasters at home and abroad as well as soaring fuel bills. "We have reached a compensation agreement with Rolls-Royce following the Rolls-Royce engine failure on flight QF32 in November...Read Full Story

Australian flag carrier Qantas Wednesday said it had reached a $100 million settlement with engine maker Rolls-Royce over a mid-air blast that forced the grounding of its entire A380 fleet. "Qantas has today reached an agreement with Rolls-Royce plc in relation to the QF32 incident," the carrier said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange . "The full settlement of Aus$95 million ($100 million) will be recognised in the FY11 result." It followed a Qantas A380 plane making an emergency...Read Full Story

FRANKFURT ( Reuters ) - Germany 's Daimler <DAIGn.DE> and Britain 's Rolls-Royce <RR.L> look set to raise their offer for Tognum <TGMG.DE> after the industrial engine maker dismissed a joint 3.2 billion euro ($4.4 billion) bid as too low. Tognum said on Wednesday there was a deal in principle but that price was a sticking point, raising expectations that the powerful industrial duo will have to improve their 24 euro-per-share cash bid. Tognum shares jumped 7.3 percent to close at 24.90 euros...Read Full Story

Silence has not proved golden for Rolls-Royce, the maker of an engine that blew apart on the world's biggest commercial jetliner this month, shooting metal scrap into the wing and setting off a plunge in the British company's stock price. Rolls-Royce has limited itself to just one vaguely worded public statement since the Nov. 4 accident on the Qantas A380, a strategy that analysts say may be causing more damage to the British company than the incident itself. The almost 10 percent drop in...Read Full Story