Shop slump fails to faze WH Smith January 25, 2012 WH SMITH cheered investors yesterday after the books and stationery retailer posted an improvement in profit margins despite sales continuing to fall. Chief executive Kate Swann said the group had delivered a “resilient” performance in a challenging market after like-for-like sales fell five per cent for the 21 weeks to 21 January. The FTSE 250 [...]
Asda takes George brand to Middle East January 25, 2012 ASDA, the British arm of US retailer Wal-Mart, has signed a franchise deal with a Lebanon-based firm to take its George budget fashion brand to the Middle East. The UK’s second largest supermarket said in a statement yesterday that the Azadea Group, headquartered in Beirut, would explore options for its George label in the Middle [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: DID WH SMITH’S RESULTS MARK AN IMPROVEMENT? January 25, 2012 PHILIP DORGAN | PANMURE GORDON Management has now successfully shifted the seasonality of the business, but a break up looks unlikely in the short run and top line momentum is likely to remain subdued. We think shares currently lack a catalyst. JOHN STEVENSON | PEEL HUNT WH Smith delivered Christmas trading in line with subdued [...]
Netflix survives disastrous year January 25, 2012 ONLINE streaming service Netflix exceeded expectations for 2011 despite its market value crashing by more than two thirds in October as up to a million customers left the service in protest to hiked fees. While fourth-quarter net income slid 13 per cent to $41m (£26.1m), quarterly revenues were up by a third on the previous [...]
Boeing upbeat over plane sales January 25, 2012 BOEING said yesterday that a pension expense larger than Wall Street had anticipated would weigh on its 2012 earnings, but it handed investors good news with expectations for increased aircraft deliveries this year. The world’s largest aerospace and defence company reported fourth-quarter net profit of $1.4bn, compared with $1.2bn a year earlier. The company, which [...]
Roche offers $5.7bn to buy gene business January 25, 2012 ROCHE Holding is offering $5.7bn (£3.6bn) in cash to buy US gene sequencing company Illumina in an unfriendly takeover bid that marks a major move by the Swiss drugmaker into the gene technology field. Gene sequencing is central to personalised medicine, which allows scientists to predict a patient’s response to a particular drug, both during [...]
Merkel: don’t dumb down the Eurozone January 25, 2012 EUROPE risks becoming little more than an interesting holiday destination if less competitive countries do not follow Germany’s example, Chancellor Angela Merkel told a packed hall in Davos yesterday. Germany’s premier warned against levelling down in order to make the Eurozone a coherent economic group. “Do we wish coherence and consistency without ambition?” she demanded, [...]
SUSTAINABILITY IS ABOUT MORE THAN THE ENVIRONMENT January 25, 2012 GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE, AVIVA SUSTAINABILITY is a word that crops up in a lot of the conversations going on at Davos. For many, it’s a shorthand for environmentalism, but for us it has to mean much more than that. Our relationships with customers can last for decades – running a sustainable business is how we [...]
Moynihan: crisis to leave scars January 25, 2012 BANK chiefs will “wear the scars” of the crisis for the rest of their lives, Bank of America chief executive Brian Moynihan said during a debate on the “future of capitalism” yesterday. Moynihan had jumped to defend himself from the charge that the “old industries and institutions” are incapable of producing the necessary changes post-crisis. [...]
Mandelson surprised by political shift to the right but says coalition will last January 25, 2012 THE COALITION will last out its intended term to 2015, according to Labour peer Peter Mandelson, although he added that it was “surprising” that the right, and not the left, has benefitted from the financial crisis. Mandelson was speaking at a breakfast hosted by WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell to discuss the shift in [...]