Sainsbury’s celebrates 10 years in fashion September 2, 2014 Sainsbury’s non-food director James Brown said clothing was on track to become a £1bn business as it unveiled its new collection yesterday to mark the 10-year anniversary of fashion brand Tu. The UK’s seventh largest clothing retailer by volume has doubled the number of in-house designers to 30 over the past 12 months and also [...]
Andy Palmer takes the wheel at Aston Martin September 2, 2014 LUXURY carmaker Aston Martin revealed yesterday that Andy Palmer would sit in the driving seat as its new chief executive, after scooping him from Nissan, and bringing to an end a nine month search for a new leader. Palmer’s move to Aston Martin comes as the 101-year-old carmaker, famous for featuring in the James Bond [...]
Former government adviser Guy Levin leads the startup charge September 2, 2014 When Guy Levin left his job as a government adviser last year – where he’d worked since 2010, jumping from the Conservative Campaign Headquarters to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and finally the Department for International Development – he was passionate about bridging the gap between startups and government. “I’d always been interested [...]
Playtech looks to boost its land gaming with €10.5m takeover September 2, 2014 GAMBLING software firm Playtech, whose shares leapt 8.6 last week after it reported soaring profits in the first half of the year, yesterday announced it had acquired two video lottery machine companies in Norway and Italy for €10.5m (£8.33m). Video lottery allows players to bet on the outcome of a video game, often replicating traditional [...]
Housebuilder Redrow posts record profits September 2, 2014 REDROW posted record sales and profits yesterday after government measures designed to stimulate the housing market boosted the firm’s number of completions last year by 27 per cent. The Flintshire-based housebuilder said it completed 3,597 sales in the 12 months to 30 June, compared with 2,827 the previous year thanks to the government’s Help-to-Buy scheme, [...]
Hello, hello, hello. Who will buy London’s New Scotland Yard for £250m? September 2, 2014 New Scotland Yard has been put up for sale with a price tag of £250m in the biggest shake up of the Metropolitan Police’s estate in more than 50 years. The 1960s office block in Victoria is being sold by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) as part of a strategy to sell [...]
Hammerson sells Mayfair HQ for £54m September 2, 2014 Hammerson has sold off its last remaining office building as part of a strategy set out two years ago to focus solely on retail property in the UK and France. The FTSE 100-listed company announced yesterday that it had sold its 50 per cent stake in 10 Grosvenor Street in Mayfair to its joint venture [...]
Planning laws are a threat to this house-building bull run – Bottom Line September 2, 2014 Rising revenues and climbing profits have become par for the course for British house-builders this summer. Redrow was the latest to post a bullish update yesterday, boosted by the coalition’s controversial Help-to-Buy programme which effectively uses taxpayer cash to prop up cash-poor house-hunters. But despite this gift to construction firms’ bottom lines, the government is [...]
Help-to-Buy mortgages nearly double in 2014 second quarter September 2, 2014 The Help-to-Buy scheme is making up an increasing proportion of the mortgage market, with the number of government-guaranteed loans nearly doubling between the first and second quarters of the year. There were 11,243 uses of the controversial scheme between April and June, up significantly from 6,335 in the first three months of the year. When [...]
Biggest bottle of English sparkling wine signed by Damien Hirst yours for £15k September 2, 2014 There will be a very special addition to Christie’s second annual “Out of the Ordinary” sale tomorrow that will put the stereotype of City workers loving sparkling wine to the ultimate test. The award-winning winery Chapel Down has produced the biggest bottle of sparkling wine ever, weighing 26kg and is the equivalent of 10 [...]