BILL OF THE WEEK July 19, 2009 Vivat Bacchus London Bridge played host to an accountancy firm holding an out-of-office departmental meeting and celebration on Friday evening, and took the opportunity to pre-launch its upcoming Saturday jazz nights, which officially start this week. The 16 accountants were certainly in the mood for a celebration, quaffing on a jeroboam and two magnums of [...]
UK dominates deal rankings July 19, 2009 LONDON dominated the global mergers & acquisitions (M&A) scene last week, with deals by buyout vehicle Resolution and gas giant Centrica pushing up UK volumes by 39 per cent compared to last year. Resolution’s talk of a $2.7bn (£1.65bn) buyout of insurer Friends Provident was the top announced deal and Centrica’s $1.7bn plans to take [...]
London lures businesses despite high tax regime July 19, 2009 WITH the news that major global corporations such as McDonald’s are planning to move their European headquarters from London to Geneva, readers may wonder how worried we should be about losing critical business mass to other European cities. Business tax is indeed one of the battlegrounds of international competitiveness. Even before the 2008 crisis we [...]
Surge in fraud as hard times encourage investors and firms to drop their guard July 19, 2009 FRAUD is hitting record levels in the UK, with over 160 cases of serious fraud with charges of more than £100,000 during the first half of this year, according to the latest barometer from business advisers KPMG. The half-year figures are the highest recorded since KPMG began the survey 21 years ago. Together the cases [...]
BHP Billiton in talks with its top two candidates for the chairmanship role July 19, 2009 BHP Billiton, the mining giant, is believed to be holding interviews this week with Jacques Nasser, former chief executive of Ford, and John Schubert, a former managing director of Esso Australia, for the post of chairman. The current BHP chairman Don Argus is expected to be stepping down after the £71bn iron ore joint venture [...]
Wagner’s Tesco tie-up deal July 19, 2009 Dan Wagner, the internet entrepreneur, is mulling over a return to the stock market after his online business venture, Venda, signed a tie-up with Tesco online. Wagner has signed a new contract to power Tesco’s fashion website when it goes live this autumn. It is believed that Goldman Sachs has been appointed to advise on [...]
Tennents sale quenches thirst July 19, 2009 Scotland’s best-selling lager, Tennents, has been touted for sale by its parent company Anheuser-Busch Inbev. Investment bank Lazard has been appointed to seek out potential buyers for the business, which controls 60 per cent of the Scottish drinking market. Industry sources have put a €100m (£86m) price tag on Tennents.
Hilton’s new sporting ambitions July 19, 2009 Hilton, the up-market hotel chain, is set to defy the gloom by opening a string of new properties, including plans to open a venue at the stadium of the MK Dons, in Milton Keynes. As part of the deal, under its Doubletree vehicle, Hilton will also become the football team’s shirt sponsor. Other new venues [...]
London house asking prices turn positive July 19, 2009 AVERAGE asking prices for properties in London are higher now than they were a year ago, while the yearly decline for England and Wales was trimmed to 3.1 per cent, according to property website Rightmove. Rightmove figures show that the average asking price for a UK house rose by 0.6 per cent in July on [...]
Boardroom bonuses remain attainable July 19, 2009 BRITISH board members are still receiving bonuses worth a third of their salaries, despite the general trend for pay to be frozen. According to the latest Executive Compensation Review survey by employment research firm Incomes Data Services, the amount board directors receive in bonuses fell by 25 per cent on 2008 when they could expect [...]