Old Mutual has also been linked with the troubled insurer Britannic.The group has said it wants to derive one-third of its business from South Africa, one-third from the US and one-third from the UK.A Barclays spokeswoman said the company would examine possible cost-savings from the deal, but that the bank did not expect to make any large-scale job cuts.The Bank of America buy of Fleet Boston, in an all-share deal worth about $47bn (£28bn), will see it overtake JP Morgan as the second-largest US bank. In the year to 30 June, the business made a profit of £3m from revenues of £100m.Roman Cizdyn, an analyst at Commerzbank, said the disposal of Gerrard might give Old Mutual the firepower to make a more strategically sound acquisition, such as part of the AMP empire, which is being broken up.The Australian insurance giant AMP owns the fund manager Henderson. The group has sold off parts of the operation, including the derivatives broking house GNI.In common with most stockbrokers and fund managers, Gerrard has been hampered by the adverse business environment in the past few years, and has also lost several key staff. It ended weeks of speculation that Bank of America would follow up talks it has held with Barclays with a concrete offer.Barclays said the acquisition of Gerrard, in cash, advanced its strategy to build a major wealth management business. Barclays has snapped up Gerrard, the private client wealth manager, from South Africa’s Old Mutual for £210m, a deal that makes the bank the UK’s largest financial adviser to well-healed investors. Free cash flow would total £1.5bn over the next four years.Mr Stitzer reiterated that second-half trading would be in line with the first half.The shares rose 4.5p to 396p They hit 300p in March.. Cadbury has previously said that in the next 15 months it would close two sweets factories, Halls in Manchester and Trebor in Chesterfield.

Its flagship Birmingham factory is not expected to be affected.About a third of the money saved will be spent on marketing and innovation, dubbed the “smart variety” initiative by Mr Stitzer.Mr Stitzer said Cadbury had been transformed into a worldwide group with a wider portfolio of confectionery and drinks. However, a large number of acquisitions and disposals had created “a complex organisational structure for a business of our size and a disproportionate cost base”.The acquisition of Adams chewing gum in the US in March, the largest deal that Cadbury has struck at $4.2bn (£2.5bn), brought to a head concerns over duplication.In February Cadbury restructured its nine operating units into five and separated management of the sales side from the supply chain.Mr Stitzer said Cadbury had “a powerful portfolio of leading regional and local brands in our chosen markets”. He said underlying operating profit margins would rise by a half to three-quarters of a percentage point each year until 2007 and net sales would grow at an annual rate of 3-5 per cent, under the plans. It expects to save £400m a year by shedding 10 per cent of the 55,500-strong workforce and closing about 20 per cent of its 133 factories.

The changes are expected to cost £900m over the next four years.It is unlikely many more jobs or factories will go in the UK, where rationalisation of the merged Cadbury and Trebor Basset operations is under way with the loss of 500 jobs. December is a key month since many of its customers fix their budgets then.The company said it remained on track to deliver £55m of cost savings this year More than 1,000 staff had left this year as it cut costs.. The chocolates and drinks group Cadbury Schweppes is cutting about 5,500 jobs and nearly 30 factories to raise cash for more marketing, the chief executive, Todd Stitzer, told investors in London yesterday. But it was “a little bit more cautious than you might expect .. given what’s going on among their customers. Profitability among the investment banking segment of their customers, which is about 30 per cent of core revenues, is clearly better.”"You get the sense that they feel that things have turned but they don’t want to raise expectations too early just in case it’s a false dawn or they have another blip.”Reuters said group revenue for the three months to 30 September was £789m, down 8 per cent from last year.Revenue from investment banking was hard hit, falling 17 per cent to £174m, and revenue from asset management fell 13 per cent to £157m.Reuters plans to issue another statement in January, once it has analysed December sales figures, to give guidance for the first quarter of next year. Reuters pointed to improved trading yesterday as the provider of news and financial information predicted core revenues would fall less this year than previously forecast.
Recurring revenues – income from its subscribers – are now expected to fall by between 10.5 per cent and 11 per cent this year, compared with previous guidance of 11 to 12 per cent. Third-quarter recurring revenues fell 10.9 per cent to £609m.Shares in Reuters rose 6.2 per cent, or 14.5p, to 249p – making it the biggest riser in the FTSE 100.Tom Glocer, the chief executive, said: “Trading performance this quarter was a little better than expected, driven by a reduction in the overall rate of net cancellations for the third consecutive quarter.”Net cancellations – sales minus cancellations – fell to their lowest since the first quarter of 2002.