Insurer calls for tax rebate in the Budget March 12, 2014 ZURICH is calling on the chancellor George Osborne to offer a tax rebate for income protection insurance, in a submission to the Treasury ahead of the Budget next week. Chief executive Gary Shaughnessy has written to Osborne to ask for a temporary annual tax-rebate of £50 per insured person and employer, in a bid to [...]
Rate hike for New Zealand March 12, 2014 THE RESERVE Bank of New Zealand brought an end to an era yesterday, becoming the first country with a G10 currency to raise its benchmark interest rate since 2011. Monetary policymakers cited the momentum of the economy, with 3.3 per cent GDP growth estimated for the year to March. The central bank is also concerned [...]
Ocado’s growth slows but first profit is in sight March 12, 2014 ONLINE grocer Ocado yesterday said it was on course to report its first ever annual profit this year after strong first quarter sales. Retail sales rose 18 per cent to £218m in the 12 weeks to 23 February. However, this was below what analysts were expecting and a slowdown on the 20.1 per cent growth [...]
Analyst Views: Has Ocado’s performance in the first quarter changed your outlook? March 12, 2014 CLIVE BLACK | SHORE CAPITAL Fundamentally we remain of the view that it is a distinctive business model in that it doesn’t work when it comes to earnings. The share price remains anomalous to our minds and the read across to other highly rated online retailers is spurious in our view. JAMES GRZINIC | JEFFERIES [...]
French Connection boss upbeat on future as retailer cuts losses March 12, 2014 FRENCH Connection boss Stephen Marks said yesterday that the retailer has reached “the tipping point” at which it could become a successful business again, as turnaround efforts helped it to cut full-year losses. The fashion brand reported an underlying pre-tax loss of £4.4m in the year to the end of January but this was an [...]
Clarke admits Tesco must fix image problem March 12, 2014 TESCO boss Philip Clarke admitted yesterday that the grocer and the retail industry had an “image problem” but said he was “determined to provoke a reappraisal” of Britain’s biggest supermarket. Speaking at the Retail Week Live conference, he played down a fall in its market share revealed by Kantar, arguing the industry was going through [...]
LSE’s summer stock-buster is arriving soon March 12, 2014 IF YOU loved Oscar-winning space-epic Gravity and you’re looking for your next dose of the galaxy, we might have just the thing. The London Stock Exchange has enlisted the help of Framestore, the Soho-based visual effects company that worked on Gravity, to update its market opening sequence. The current ceremony is already pretty high-tech – forget [...]
Fabricant radiates as Goldilocks at the Parliamentary Variety gig March 12, 2014 THE raw talents of MPs and Peers were flaunted last night as the annual Parliamentary Palace of Varieties, in aid of Macmillan Cancer, descended on Park Lane’s Intercontinental Hotel. Michael Fabricant stole the show, proving there’s room for more than one blonde bombshell prone to buffoonery in the Tory Party (as Boris settled back in [...]
Eurozone chiefs brush off Spain deflation fears March 12, 2014 EUROZONE central bankers queued up yesterday to insist that the currency bloc is not being hit by deflation, despite fears over price levels in Spain. The Mediterranean state posted no change in its consumer price index in February compared to a year earlier, with its central bank governor saying inflation is likely to be limited [...]
Britain tops European broadband league as average speed doubles March 12, 2014 BRITAIN has marched ahead of its European tech rivals with the lowest number of non-internet users and the highest take up of broadband, according to Ofcom’s second European Broadband Scorecard. The average home broadband speed has doubled in less than two years, reaching nearly 18 megabits per second (Mbps), putting the UK ahead of Germany, [...]