Barclays paid corporation taxes worth 53 per cent of 2013 profits June 30, 2014 BARCLAYS paid tax of 53 per cent on its profits last year, according to data published yesterday. It made a pre-tax profit of £2.87bn, but paid corporation taxes of £1.56bn across the world. British taxes were only a small proportion of that – it reported profits of £4.87bn in the UK but corporation taxes of [...]
Law Commission tells pension trustees to plan for long-term June 30, 2014 PENSION trustees must invest and plan for the long-term, not for short-term financial gains, according to a new report from the Law Commission. The government asked the commission to look into the law surrounding investments after concerns that investors were focusing on short-term share prices to satisfy legal requirements when making investments for large schemes. [...]
Portugal’s Banco Espirito Santo loses support June 30, 2014 Shares in Banco Espirito Santo, one of Portugal’s two biggest publicly traded banks, fell 17 per cent yesterday after Bank of America downgraded the lender’s bonds. The shares have lost nearly half their value in a few weeks. Banco Espirito Santo, advised by Morgan Stanley and UBS, raised €1.04bn (£832m) in May to strengthen capital [...]
Fever-Tree seeking to put fizz into market June 30, 2014 Premium mixer-maker Fever-Tree could be floated on the stock market. According to Sky News, LDC, the buyout division of Lloyds Bank, is about to call in Investec to oversee a review of its investment in Fever-Tree. It was set up in 2005 by Charles Rolls and Tim Warrillow with the aim of targeting consumers’ willingness [...]
ONS changes push UK economy to new record size June 30, 2014 The British economy has probably already grown past its 2008 peak size, according to government statisticians yesterday, revealing new methods of measuring GDP. A range of alterations in the way that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) calculates the size of the economy comes into force later this year and will mean that the downturn after [...]
Marks & Spencer reshuffles the pack to bring together website and buildings June 30, 2014 British retailer Marks & Spencer yesterday announced that it would increase the responsibilities of the five key executives under chief executive Marc Bolland as part of a restructuring of its management team aimed at driving greater accountability. As part of the reshuffle, M&S announced that its international director Jan Heere had quit and that [...]
FirstGroup share price hit by critical letter from investor Tom Sandell June 30, 2014 FirstGroup shares fell 2.69 per cent to 126.60p yesterday, following high profile criticism of management pay at the rail and bus company by activist investor Tom Sandell. The comments in an open letter said that management had “significantly underperformed” and had increased remuneration was not “deserved”. However, yesterday sources close to the company raised doubts [...]
Bid target Shire gets $416m tax windfall boost June 30, 2014 UK drugmaker Shire, subject of a £27bn takeover bid by Canadian firm AbbVie, yesterday said it had received C$248m (£138m) back in rebates from Canadian tax authorities – with a further C$168m still to come. The payback bolstered Shire’s position yesterday, as it geared up for battle with AbbVie to woo shareholders over the takeover [...]
UK mortgage approvals drop to 11-month low as market cools June 30, 2014 Bank of England figures confirmed yesterday that mortgage approvals dropped to an 11-month low in May, even as the actual amount of lending secured against property rose to the highest level since mid-2008. There were 61,707 applications approved during the month, a drop of more than 1,000 from April and down from the 75,901 in [...]
Eurozone lending and inflation data signal meagre expansion June 30, 2014 LENDING and inflation in the Eurozone showed little sign of recovery in May and June, according to figures published yesterday. Inflation held at 0.5 per cent in June, the same figure as in May and the joint-lowest since a brief period in 2009. Prices are rising far more slowly than the European Cental Bank (ECB) [...]