Time Warner set to make a move on Shed June 20, 2010 TIME WARNER, the media giant behind Sex and the City, is close to acquiring Shed Media, the producer of iconic shows such as Footballers’ Wives and Supernanny. Shed has already announced that takeover discussions with a management buy-out group, backed by Bowmark Capital and Darwin Private Equity, have fallen through but at the time it [...]
Public sector accountants to hit job market June 20, 2010 PUBLIC SECTOR spending cuts by the government could force over 16,500 accountants and finance staff into unemployment, according to new research. Recruitment firm Ambition said with the government’s planned £6.2bn public spending cuts, accounting and finance departments are expecting they will have to shed the jobs, which currently make up 2.3 per cent of the [...]
NOMURA READY FOR ROOF WITH A VIEW June 20, 2010 Only weeks to go now before the biggest decampment the City has seen in a while; Japanese bank Nomura’s move back to the City from the Canary Wharf offices it inherited from Lehman Brothers a few years back. The bank, which will move its staff floor by floor to minimise disruption, starting on 12 July, [...]
BILL OF THE WEEK June 20, 2010 AUSTERITY still seems to be the order of the day, if this little group dining at Camden’s Gilgamesh restaurant last week are anything to go by. Our diners barely touched their alcohol, claiming that they’d stick to a simple splash of bubbly (a few bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal, natch) because they had to stay [...]
TONY HAYWARD: I AM DEEPLY SORRY June 17, 2010 TONY HAYWARD, BP’s embattled chief executive, yesterday sought to distance himself from the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill during a heated interrogation by Senators. Hayward, who appeared before the House energy and commerce sub-committee panel looking tired and worn-out, told Senators that all of the decisions made about the Macondo well, which is gushing [...]
Pay falls at fund star’s UK offices June 17, 2010 SALARIES have tumbled at the London branch of the hedge fund run by Paul Tudor Jones, the billionaire trader who earned cult status by predicting 1987’s Black Monday crash. Tudor Jones, who is worth an estimated $3.2bn (£2.2bn) after three decades at the top of one of the world’s most successful investment companies, is renowned [...]
Spending cuts total £10.5bn June 17, 2010 THE government yesterday cancelled £10.5bn of projects, which were signed off when Labour went on a last-minute spending spree in the run up to the general election. Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, told the Commons his hand had been forced by the “irresponsible financial planning” of the previous government. He announced he was [...]
UK needs more creative destruction June 17, 2010 IT was Joseph Schumpeter, the great economist, who first understood that capitalism is a process of creative destruction. Every day, new firms are born with fresh ideas, talent and technologies; old firms die when they become unable to meet customers’ needs efficiently and fail to make a better use of resources than their rivals. Competition [...]
BT could face long strike June 17, 2010 THE Communication Workers Union said last night it was prepared for a lengthy strike at BT, as the telecoms firm took to contacting workers directly in an attempt to avert industrial action. Andy Kerr, the CWU’s deputy general secretary, said that he was willing to organise a protracted strike in order to improve upon BT’s [...]
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON IN THE WORLD OF SPIN June 17, 2010 TO THE Kensington home of City slicker Roland Rudd, the boss of PR firm Finsbury, last night for his annual party, one of the highlights of the summer schmoozing circuit. Grandees of the worlds of business and politics were there in their droves for the event, including WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell; Royal Bank of [...]