Tube Lines’ legal bid fails January 24, 2010 The company responsible for upgrading the Jubilee and Northern lines has failed in a bid to extract an extra £327m from London Underground. An independent adjudication “dismissed in its entirety” a claim by Tube Lines that the London Underground was in breach of its PPP contract. The ruling, by an independent QC, confirmed London Underground’s [...]
Betfair hires banks to plan autumn float January 24, 2010 ONLINE gambling exchange Betfair is understood to have appointed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to advise on a £1.5bn flotation. The company, which is backed by Japanese lender Softbank, is thought to be examining an autumn listing which would potentially net co-founders Ed Wray and Andrew Black hundreds of millions of pounds. The news will [...]
Share sale will mean Google’s co-founders lose majority vote January 24, 2010 LARRY Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of the web giant Google, are to sell 10m of their shares in the company to raise around $5.5bn (£3.4bn). The pair will lose majority control of the business they established while still students at Stanford University. Their 59 per cent voting rights will be diluted to 48 per [...]
Soaring London fraud rate tops a bumper decade for criminals January 24, 2010 A record £1.3bn of fraud committed in 2009 highlights a surge in the level of the crime during the 2000s when 1,750 cases were registered. It meant fraudsters netted more than £7bn of ill-gotten gains in a decade which saw the ascent of high profile “super-cases” involving billions of dollars and notorious individuals such as [...]
Blackstone on UK bank trail January 24, 2010 AMERICAN investment group Blackstone is examining the possibility of entering the UK banking market, its chief executive Stephen Schwarzman said yesterday. Last week sources familiar with the matter said that Blackstone, one of the world’s leading buyout firms, had applied for a British banking licence and was working alongside fund manager Cambridge Place on a [...]
Confidence propels company valuations to two-year high January 24, 2010 Company valuations rose sharply last year to reach their highest levels since early 2007, according to an index by accountancy firm BDO. Public companies are now valued at an average multiple of 15.1 times earnings, up 78 per cent over the year. The value of private companies has risen to its highest level in two [...]
Kraft expected to look to create more jobs after Cadbury purchase January 24, 2010 Kraft is understood to have pledged to create more jobs in the UK and grow Cadbury’s British business following its takeover of the confectioner. Michael Osanloo, Kraft’s executive vice-president, strategy, and the man in charge of the Cadbury integration is expecting to increase manufacturing jobs in the UK after saying he was optimistic the vast [...]
Adams in strife as parent calls in the administrator January 24, 2010 Childrenswear chain Adams has gone in to administration for the second time in little more than a year, putting 2,000 jobs at risk. Insolvency firm MCR was called in on Friday to Adams’ parent company, JS Childrenswear. MCR partner Paul Clark said “all options” were being considered for the business, which has 120 stores across [...]
B&B, Rock on cusp of bad bank merger January 24, 2010 PART-nationalised lender Bradford & Bingley is on the brink of receiving the go-ahead from the European Commission for its package of UK state aid, in a move that will pave the way for a merger of its toxic mortgage book with Northern Rock’s bad bank. A marriage of Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock’s bad [...]
House price rises expected as level of confidence soars January 24, 2010 CONFIDENCE in the UK housing market has jumped more than five-fold in the last year. The number of people expecting house prices to increase over the next 12 months has risen from 10 per cent at the start of 2009 to 53 per cent. The British public expect only a modest rise, according to Rightmove, [...]