UK profits strong at Investec in spite of weakness in South Africa September 17, 2009 INVESTMENT bank Investec said yesterday that profits in the UK and Europe are holding up, despite a weaker performance in its South African and Australian divisions forcing it to lower forecasts for the first half of the year. Investec said in a pre-close briefing that first-half net operating income and operating profits would be below [...]
ROYAL MAIL FAILS TO DELIVER September 17, 2009 POSTAL STRIKES that have crippled the UK looked set to get even worse yesterday, as the CWU union called for a national walkout. The strikes over pay and job cuts, which started in July, have caused a backlog of an estimated 20m letters. Most of the delays are in London, Royal Mail said yesterday. The [...]
CITY VIEWS: IS THE SKY THE LIMIT FOR THE FTSE 100? September 17, 2009 CHRIS BRANDON XSIGO SYSTEMS“It’s too soon to assume the FTSEwill keep on going up – I expect it will level off quite quickly. I think the issue at the moment is profits and as we come to the end of the financial year it could turn out that they are not as spectacular as people [...]
RECORD SALES FOR IKEA September 17, 2009 SWEDISH furniture giant Ikea yesterday posted record sales of €21.5bn (£19.1bn) despite its slowest growth in more than a decade. Ikea’s new chief executive Mikael Ohlsson (pictured) said sales for the year to 31 August rose by 1.4 per cent, down from seven per cent growth in the previous year. Ohlsson’s predecessor Anders Dahlvig had [...]
DTZ says trading is in line with expectations September 17, 2009 Commercial property agent DTZ yesterday told shareholders it was trading “in line with expectations”, two months after reporting an annual pre-tax loss of £35.1m. Chairman Tim Melville-Ross yesterday said that the group’s £50m cost cutting programme had accelerating and “savings were well advanced”. Melville-Ross said: “The global economic crisis and resulting unrelenting pressure on global [...]
DAREDEVIL CHIEF ROLET BRINGS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR TO FUSTY LSE September 17, 2009 XAVIER Rolet is certainly freshening things up over at the London Stock Exchange. The exchange’s new boss has been busy over the past few weeks, having shaken up the LSE’s marketing team, struck a deal to replace its IT provider and got rid of its trusted PR adviser Finsbury (the super-spinner and its arch-rival Brunswick [...]
GOVERNMENT IS ACCUSED OF HIDING DEBT September 17, 2009 A FORMER Treasury adviser has accused the government of hiding the full extent of the public debt crisis by using controversial accounting rules to squirrel £32.5bn of spending off its books. An astonishing 87 per cent of private finance initiative deals – under which the taxpayer pays private firms to build and run hospitals, roads [...]
LLOYDS’ TOXIC DEBT PLAN HIT September 17, 2009 LLOYDS Banking Group’s hopes of avoiding participation in the government’s Asset Protection Scheme (APS) were dashed yesterday, as the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said the bank did not have sufficient capital to spurn the facility. FSA officials, who have been stress testing the bank, have told Lloyds that the level of capital it would have [...]
Blackstone poised to snap up half of BritishLand’s Broadgate complex September 17, 2009 PROPERTY investment firm British Land is poised to complete the sale of half of its £2.2bn City office complex Broadgate to US private equity house Blackstone. The two firms were last night thrashing out the terms of the deal, which will see Blackstone enter into a joint venture with British Land. Blackstone will pay just [...]
Hershey eyes Cadbury bid September 17, 2009 THETRUST in charge of US confectionery maker Hershey has hired bankers to advise on a possible bid for Cadbury, after fellow American giant Kraft had a $16.7bn (£10.2bn) bid rebuffed. Hershey has drafted in Goldman Sachs banker Byron Trott and boutique banking firm Watch Hill Partners to advise on a bid for the company. Trott [...]