Profitable Bovis gets set for a spending spree March 8, 2010 HOUSEBUILDER Bovis is steaming ahead with plans to invest in new land after moving back into profit in 2009. The FTSE 250 group says it has restarted its land acquisition scheme with four sites with planning consent snapped up in the fourth quarter of 2009 and terms agreed on another 15. It had £122m net [...]
Retail sales bounce back after miserable January March 8, 2010 BRITISH retailers bounced back in February after a miserable start to the year, posting a 2.2 per cent rise in like-for-like retail sales values, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said today. But the BRC cautioned against reading too much into these figures as the growth is compared with very weak figures a year ago when [...]
House prices fall due to extra supply March 8, 2010 AN INFLUX of properties onto the market last month has depressed house prices, the Royal Institution for Chartered Surveyors (RICS) will say today. Its monthly survey showed a net 17 per cent of estate agents reporting rising rather than falling prices, much less than January’s 31 per cent. Both new buyer enquiries and new instructions [...]
No headcount increase for London’s firms March 8, 2010 LONDON firms are not intending to add to their workforces over the next quarter, the latest Manpower Employment Survey will show today. This is marginally weaker than the net one per cent of UK employers that have positive hiring intentions. Nationally, the sectors with the most positive hiring intentions are utilities, finance and business services, [...]
YANKEE RED KNIGHTS LAY CLAIM TO A NAME March 8, 2010 MANCHESTER United’s would-be “Red Knights”, the group of City businessmen currently attempting to wrest the club from the grasp of its US owners, the Glazer family, may well be in for a bit of a headache over their choice of moniker. The Capitalist last week discovered a very different group bearing the same name over [...]
Petrofac lifts its profits by 33pc in 2009 March 8, 2010 PETROFAC, the oil and gas services company, recorded a net profit of $353.6m (£234.7m) in 2009 on Monday, up from $265m the year before. A particularly strong performance from the engineering and construction business meant the results beat market expectations, which ranged from $273m to $346m. Goldman Sachs said: “net profit was five per cent [...]
Shell and PetroChina launch £2bn takeover bid for Arrow March 8, 2010 ROYAL Dutch Shell and PetroChina may have to up their bid if they are to secure their takeover of Australian energy company Arrow Energy. Analysts said the joint venture bid valued at A$3bn (£1.8bn) or A$4.45 per share was below the current trading price of A$5.11 a share. Arrow’s shareholders are also unlikely to sell [...]
WHAT DID the analysts MAKE OF PETROFAC’S RESULTS ? March 8, 2010 PETER HITCHENS | PANMURE Gordon “Petrofac has produced a very good set of results, particularly in engineering and construction. They are clearly doing everything right…they have built order books at the same time as everyone else has seen orders retreat. The company is ‘standing above’ the rest of the sector.” JASON KENNY | ING “It’s [...]
E.ON cuts prices for residential customers after Ofgem pressure March 8, 2010 ENERGY provider E.ON UK is to cut gas prices to residential customers by six per cent from 31 March, the company said yesterday. Around 1.9m monthly direct debit customers will benefit from a price cut of £42 a year, the utility said. Vulnerable customers on E.ON’s WarmAssist tariff will see larger cuts, with an estimated [...]