Moody’s strips Ireland of its remaining coveted triple-A rating on grim outlook July 2, 2009 MOODY’S yesterday stripped Ireland of its last AAA credit rating and warned Prime Minister Brian Cowen he needed to inflict more fiscal pain on his recession-wracked country or risk a further costly downgrade. Cowen has put Ireland on a five-year austerity diet after a debt-fuelled property binge transformed the former “Celtic Tiger” economy into one [...]
Credit availability to increase July 2, 2009 Lenders are expecting to increase the availability of credit to both households and businesses over the next three months, the Bank of England’s credit conditions survey showed yesterday. Lenders also expect a further increase in default rates and predicted that spreads on household and corporate lending, would widen further, consistent with higher expected future losses.
Tributes paid to dead cyclist July 2, 2009 Staff at PR firm Citigate Dewe Rogerson paid tribute to their former colleague Catriona Cockburn yesterday, who died in a cycling accident on Monday. 39-year-old Cockburn collided with an HGV lorry. A message on the company’s website said she would be “enormously missed.”
Flybe ranked as UK number one July 2, 2009 Europe’s largest regional airline Flybe will say today it carried more domestic passengers than any other airline. Overall, the Flybe brand carried 26 per cent of the total UK domestic passengers that flew during April, with its closest rival Easyjet landing behind with 23 per cent, figures from the CAA will show.
Oracle to cut 1,000 European jobs July 2, 2009 Oracle plans to lay off up to 1,000 workers in Europe, or about one per cent of its global staff, as the recession erodes the giant software compans earnings, it emerged yesterday. The world’s second biggest listed software maker would be one of the last major technology companies to undertake significant layoffs in this economic [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS July 2, 2009 WPP GROUPCitigroup has downgraded WPP to “sell” saying that a continuation on second quarter trends would suggest a 2009 full-year organic decline of 7.5 per cent and limited growth in 2010. The broker sees risk to the earnings and thinks that the first half results in August will be a negative catalyst, and lowers its [...]
Greene King sales boosted by sunshine July 2, 2009 BREWER and pub owner Greene King yesterday said warmer weather had boosted trading in the last eight weeks as drinkers flocked to sunny beer gardens. The group, which owns City pubs Golden Fleece and The Old Tea Warehouse, said like-for-like sales were up 5.2 per cent at Greene King’s managed pubs in the first eight [...]
Carphone in Vodafone tie-up July 2, 2009 CARPHONE Warehouse said yesterday it will offer contracts from Vodafone from next week in its 820 stores, three years after Vodafone pulled its mobile phone products from the retailer. Vodafone switched to an exclusive deal with Carphone rival Phones4U in 2006 in the hope it could pay lower sales commissions. The move knocked Carphone’s shares [...]
Game Group shares fall as trading gets worse July 2, 2009 COMPUTER games retailer Game Group yesterday posted an accelerating decline in sales, only partly offset by better profit margins, sending its shares as much as 11 per cent lower. The UK-based group, which trades from 1,367 stores, concessions and franchises in nine European countries and Australia, said like-for-like sales fell 15.4 per cent in the [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 2, 2009 FSSCThe Financial Services Skills Council has appointed Simon Ellis to lead an independent review of its future role and strategy. Ellis joins from Fidelity’s multi-manager business, where he was a managing director. He was also previously head of UK retail at AXA Investment Managers and was until recently a board director of the Investment Managers [...]