CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 5, 2010 SWIP The Scottish Widows Investment Partnership has appointed Ramsay Urquhart as its new finance director and part of the executive committee, reporting directly to managing director Dean Buckley. Urquhart joins from Barclays Wealth, where he has been head of investment operations since September 2006. Prior to that, he spent 14 years at Dutch financial services [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS July 5, 2010 TUI TRAVEL UBS upgrades TUI Travel from “neutral” to “buy” with a lower price target of 250p. UBS said that market risk aversion and concerns that a late collapse in summer 2010 sales will cause a significant earnings downgrade seem to have caused the shares to sharply underperform. UBS believes the stock now offers good [...]
GMG appoints new CEO as McCall quits July 5, 2010 GUARDIAN Media Group (GMG) has announced its chief financial officer will replace Carolyn McCall as chief executive of the struggling firm. Andrew Miller was among the favourites to take the top job after McCall announced she would take up the role of chief executive at easyJet. Amelia Fawcett, chair of GMG, said: “Andrew is the [...]
Doing well can be the best way to do good July 5, 2010 Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa, and I met for breakfast recently. Dead Aid argues that aid to Africa is hurting Africa and should be phased out. It became a New York Times bestseller. She reminded me of one of the [...]
Bunzl takes the plunge to buy Belgian cleaning firm July 5, 2010 aDISTRIBUTION group Bunzl has continued its expansion plan by buying Global Net, a Belgian cleaning company, for an undisclosed sum yesterday. The bolt-on acquisition takes revenues gained from recent takeovers past £100m, adding to five purchases across Europe and the Middle East that boosted trading figures in the first half of the year. Global Net’s [...]
Spyker makes final payment for Saab July 5, 2010 DUTCH carmaker Spyker Cars has used internal funding rather than external debt to pay General Motors the final £15.9m purchase price for Sweden’s Saab, ending concern over how it would foot the bill. Niche carmaker Spyker, which has never made a profit, took over the larger Saab from GM earlier this year and is now [...]
Superdrug reduces losses by cutting costs and keeping focus on local offers July 5, 2010 HIGH Street retailer Superdrug has reported a pre-tax loss of £243,000 for the year to December 2009, against a loss the year before of £7.4m. The firm has pulled its operating profits out of the red to report a £6m gain, compared to a loss of £2.4m last year. Sales were broadly flat at £1.1bn, [...]
Services sector growth slows July 5, 2010 THE services sector grew last month at its slowest rate for 10 months, held back by subdued new business and a record monthly drop in confidence, a survey said yesterday. The Markit/CIPS services PMI headline activity index fell for the third time in four months to 54.4 in June from 55.4 in May. That was [...]
BA passenger numbers plummet in June July 5, 2010 BRITISH Airways carried 11.1 per cent fewer passengers in June year-on-year reflecting the impact of strike action by cabin crew. BA, which is engaged in a long-running dispute with cabin crew members over pay and conditions, carried 2.57m passengers last month, down from the 2.93m it flew in June 2009, while its load factor – [...]
Travis Perkins buys BSS for £558m July 5, 2010 BUILDERS merchant Travis Perkins has agreed to buy BSS Group for £557.6m ($845m) to expand its heating and plumbing trade and retail distribution business. Robert Walker, chairman of Travis Perkins said: “We believe that there is a strong strategic rationale for the acquisition of BSS which will create the leading plumbing and heating trade and [...]