M&S investor piles pressure for cash return January 7, 2014 MARKS & Spencer shareholders are putting pressure on the high street retailer to buy shares or increase its dividend, as the City braces itself for a gloomy trading update tomorrow. One top 20 investor told City A.M. “There is some pressure on management somewhat given that we are at the end of the turnaround strategy [...]
Former UBS banker pleads not guilty to assisting tax dodging January 7, 2014 A FORMER high-ranking UBS banker charged with helping Americans dodge taxes through secret Swiss bank accounts pleaded not guilty to tax fraud conspiracy yesterday in federal court in Florida. Raoul Weil, a 54-year-old Swiss citizen and former head of global wealth management at UBS was charged five years ago with conspiring to help thousands of [...]
Royal Mail hit by broker note January 7, 2014 CANTOR Fitzgerald looks set to be left off Royal Mail’s Christmas card list this year after slapping a sell rating on the postal service’s shares. Cantor analyst Robin Byde said that “following its spectacular post-IPO performance, [Royal Mail]’s valuation and dividend yield are no longer compelling”. While he said the firm was doing well with [...]
Jury selection begins in trial of SAC trader January 7, 2014 JURY selection began yesterday in the trial of Mathew Martoma, a former portfolio manager at Steven A Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors hedge fund, who is accused of engaging in the most lucrative insider trading scheme in US history. Court officials handed questionnaires to 80 potential jurors to determine their suitability to sit for more than [...]
Tablets the top pick for iPlayer Xmas viewing January 7, 2014 THE BBC’S iPlayer service saw more viewers tune in on tablets than computers over Christmas for the first time ever. In comparison, last year tablets made up just 21 per cent of iPlayer’s Boxing Day viewers. “2013 truly proved to be the year of the tablet and after they were all unwrapped, Boxing Day saw [...]
Boss-napped French execs let go January 7, 2014 TWO EXECUTIVES taken hostage during redundancy negotiations at a tyre plant in Amiens, France, were released yesterday after being held for more than 24 hours. Members from the CGT union blocked the managers from leaving the site during redundancy discussions with workers that have been laid off by Goodyear. The hostage-takers had initially said that [...]
Bumper December helps Apple top $10bn in app sales in 2013 January 7, 2014 APPLE said yesterday that its customers spent $1bn (£610m) on purchases in its applications store in December, leading to a total of $10bn worth of apps sold in 2013. Apple reported that almost three billion apps were downloaded in December, making it a record month for the store, which offers one million apps for the [...]
Irish borrowing costs tumble on strong demand January 7, 2014 THE IRISH government successfully raised €3.75bn (£3.1bn) in long term debt yesterday in its first return to the markets since exiting its bailout programme last year. The troubled economy’s relatively healthy revival has been met with strong demand from investors – the 10 year bond was more than three times oversubscribed. Investors placed bids for [...]
Surprise drop in Eurozone price growth reveals risk of deflation January 7, 2014 EUROZONE inflation fell in December after a small rise the previous month, increasing the European Central Bank’s challenge of avoiding deflation as well as supporting the bloc’s recovery. Consumer price inflation in the 17 countries then sharing the euro stood at 0.8 per cent year-on-year in the last month of 2013, compared with 0.9 per [...]
German boost from jobs data January 7, 2014 THERE was good news for Germany yesterday as unemployment fell for the first time in five months in December – by 15,000. The jobless rate stayed steady at 6.9 per cent, yet the figures nonetheless beat expectations. But despite job creation throughout last year, unemployment has increased by 33,000 compared to a year ago. “Strong labour [...]