Floral firm Laura Ashley sales get a spring time lift from in-store discounts June 2, 2009 FASHION and homewares retailer Laura Ashley said yesterday its total UK retail sales in the first 17 weeks of the current financial year rose 8.4 per cent, aided by promotional activity and an increase in retail space. “Despite the challenging economic environment, the board remains cautiously optimistic for the current year,” the company said. Like-for-like [...]
Labour market deteriorates further but slower pace fuels hope of recovery June 2, 2009 THE labour market continued to deteriorate in May, but the pace of decline slowed for a third month and experts said there are signs of recovery. Permanent placements fell for the fourteenth consecutive month, but at the slowest pace since last July, while temporary billings declined at the weakest rate since September. But the monthly [...]
Talvivaara plans a share issue to expand resources June 2, 2009 ZINC miner Talvivaara plans to issue over 20m shares, equal to about 10 per cent of current shares, to finance a plant expansion, it said yesterday. The 22.28m shares would be worth £84m based on yesterday’s share price. The shares will be placed with new and existing institutional shareholders so the firm can boost production [...]
JUMPING OFF A SINKING SHIP June 2, 2009 PRIME Minister Gordon Brown’s plans for a cabinet reshuffle have been thrown into disarray with the resignation of five Labour MPs, including three ministers. Home secretary Jacqui Smith, Beverley Hughes, the families minister and cabinet office minister Tom Watson all quit ahead of Brown’s shake-up, which is expected to follow likely heavy defeats for Labour [...]
Consumer confidence improving June 2, 2009 CONSUMER confidence in the UK enjoyed its biggest rise in almost two years during April, according to Nationwide. The UK’s largest mutual said its consumer confidence index rose eight points to reach 50 in April, with 26 per cent of survey respondents saying they expect the economic situation to be better in six months time. [...]
Macquarie in fund raising June 2, 2009 MACQUARIE Group has raised A$1.2bn (£593m) from shareholders, in another boost for the Australian investment bank, which has seen the price of its stock double in the past three months. The cash injection means Macquarie now holds $4.3bn more than the minimum capital requirement imposed by regulators. Its shares have risen from a 10-year-low of [...]
Money supply is starting to grow again June 2, 2009 FOR all the much-deserved carnage in Westminster yesterday, the economy is gradually recovering. This doesn’t mean we will enjoy a V-shaped bounce-back: growth, when it returns, will have to contend with massive fiscal tightening to tackle the exploding budget deficit; interest rates will also have to go up, dealing the convalescing housing market a second [...]
BP: no final salary scheme June 2, 2009 ENERGY giant BP is to close its final salary pension scheme to new employees from April next year, City A.M. can confirm. The cost of funding BP’s pension obligations has soared since last year, reaching $368m (£222m) in the first quarter of 2009, compared to $246m in the same period of 2008, as the return [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 2, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMESCARLSBERG SEEKS TO EXTEND REACH IN ASIACarlsberg, the Danish brewer, is planning further expansion in Asia to help reduce its substantial exposure to the volatile Russian beer market. “We do see Asia as being a place to expand and invest in,” Jørgen Buhl Rasmussen, chief executive, told the Financial Times in an interview. He [...]
BBVA offers staff five years off June 2, 2009 Spanish bank BBVA is offering staff up to five years off in a bid to cut costs.The bank hopes some of its 29,954 workers will agree to stay home for five years, while banking nearly a third of their usual salary. They would then have a guaranteed job to return to. Other alternatives are a [...]