Trainline takes advice for sale July 2, 2014 TRAIN ticket booking website Thetrainline.com is working with investment bank Morgan Stanley to help guide it to a potential stock market debut. The firm’s private equity backers Exponent Private Equity has engaged the banking giant, according to Sky News, to sell its controlling stake to fund management firms or a trade buyer. Exponent tried to [...]
Fidelity vet chairs forum July 2, 2014 THE FORMER chief investment officer of Fidelity Worldwide Investment Simon Fraser has been appointed chair of an influential new cross-industry investor group. The Investor Forum, founded by fund managers, insurers and pension funds, launched yesterday to promote better governance. Fraser will chair the group and Andy Griffiths, a senior adviser at private equity group Corsair [...]
UK house prices up to 2007 peak as pressure builds July 2, 2014 House prices across the UK are back up to their 2007 peak, according to a new report by Nationwide. The figures show that prices increased by one per cent in June, an 11.8 per cent increase on the same period a year previously. Prices in London continue to trump those across the rest of the [...]
Federal Reserve’s chair Janet Yellen stays firm on low interest rates July 2, 2014 Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen yesterday stuck by the US central bank’s loose monetary policy, reiterating her view that regulation should be the key tool used to combat financial stability risks. She argued that interest rates should seldom be used to combat risks to financial stability and that doing so to counter the US housing [...]
Google receives 50,000 “right to be forgotten” deletion requests July 2, 2014 Search engine giant Google yesterday told City A. M. that it had received 50,000 requests to delete articles since a European court ruling in May ordered it to remove “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data if an individual requested it. The European Court of Justice ruling came into force this week Google has started [...]
Ashley finally set for Sports Direct bonus July 2, 2014 SPORTS Direct triumphed yesterday in pushing through a multimillion-pound bonus share scheme for founder Mike Ashley despite vehement opposition from several shareholder groups. The retail giant’s third attempt at rewarding Ashley, who did not vote, was backed by 60.4 per cent of investors – overcoming opponents to the scheme such as Scottish fund manager Standard [...]
Bottom Line: How to lose friends and alienate people July 2, 2014 MIKE Ashley looked thoroughly bored at yesterday’s Sports Direct meeting, seemingly fed up with all the commotion surrounding its latest attempt to pay him a hefty bonus. One might have thought he’d be used to it. An extremely divisive figure, often ridiculed and reviled in the football world, the bolshie and controversial way by which [...]
Tesco chairman Sir Richard Broadbent flies to Burma to broker F&F clothing deal July 2, 2014 Tesco chairman Sir Richard Broadbent flew to Burma this week to broker a deal that would see it source clothing from the country for its fast-growing clothing brand F&F. Broadbent, who travelled with group commercial director Kevin Grace, is understood to be meeting suppliers and government officials as well opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. [...]
Mothercare shares jump on £266m takeover bid July 2, 2014 US RETAILER Destination Maternity yesterday said that it would seek to hold talks with Mothercare’s board after revealing that it has had two takeover proposals rejected by the mother and baby products chain. Destination Maternity said Mothercare had rebuffed its first two written proposals and had “refused to engage” with the firm on its latest [...]
Analyst Views: Was Mothercare right to reject a takeover offer from America? July 2, 2014 MIKE DENNIS | CANTOR FITZGERALD You just have to look at the chairman’s statement to see what’s wrong with the deal – the highly conditional nature and the lack of strategic rationale… Destination Maternity believes Mothercare can help them achieve global leadership? We think this is questionable and we find this difficult to understand. JOHN [...]