The common sense angel of the Den with a loathing for business jargon June 1, 2009 WHEN Deborah Meaden talks about the “great entrepreneurial spirit in the UK”, people should take note. As a panellist on the BBC’s popular business show Dragon’s Den, she’s part of a team who have become the public faces of anyone-can-do-it enterprise. Meaden turned her family holiday park business into a multi-million pound operation, making her [...]
Lords call for stronger BoE June 1, 2009 AN influential House of Lords committee yesterday issued a thinly-veiled criticism of Gordon Brown’s stewardship of the economy, saying that “‘boom and bust’” was mistakenly consigned to history”. In its report on banking regulation, the Lords Economic Affairs Committee also said that Brown’s tripartite reform of the regulatory system had been “found wanting” amid the [...]
Poundland profits up on slump June 1, 2009 EUROPE’S largest single price discounter, Poundland, will today prove that it is continuing to buck the retail gloom and report a 47 per cent jump in annual operating profit. The group said for the year to 29 March operating profit rose to £11.8m from £8m the year before. And earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and [...]
Nomura bankers learning to live with Western-style culture of bonus awards June 1, 2009 STAFF at Japanese brokerage Nomura are warming to a Western-style pay structure that places more weight on bonuses, its chief executive Kenichi Watanabe said yesterday. Watanabe said more than half of the firm’s 1,600 investment bankers had signed up to contracts similar to those that existed at the Lehman Brothers operations Nomura bought last autumn. [...]
Iberdrola to sell 352m stake in wind turbine firm June 1, 2009 SPANISH utility Iberdrola said yesterday it was selling 10 per cent of wind turbine maker Gamesa, a stake worth about €408.3m (£352m), based on yesterday’s closing price. Iberdrola said it had hired investment bank Morgan Stanley to find institutions and qualified investors to buy 24.3m shares. It currently owns 23.95 per cent of Gamesa, which [...]
HOME RETAIL CHIEF MISSES OUT ON BONUS June 1, 2009 TERRY Duddy, the chief executive of Argos-owner Home Retail Group, saw his pay packet fall by over £900,000 last year after he failed to hit performance targets. According to the firm’s annual report, Duddy’s total remuneration in the year to end February was £858,000, down from £1.77m a year earlier. No other executives at the [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 1, 2009 HermesThe fund manager has appointed Saker Nusseibeh as head of investments. Nusseibeh, who will also join the Hermes main board, joins from Fortis Investments, where he was global head of equities and chief information officer for global equities. He was previously managing director of international equities and chief information officer for global equities at TCW/ [...]
GARRETT-COX: DEFENSIVE June 1, 2009 BUSINESS “superwoman” Katherine Garrett-Cox, boss of the giant Alliance Trust, said yesterday she stuck with her focus on defensive stocks in the first quarter. She added a healthy 2.5 per cent to the fund’s assets over the quarter to £2.17bn, aided by a strategy of cutting its cash position from 10.5 per cent to 4.7 [...]
Shoppers keep clicking to boost online revenues June 1, 2009 ONLINE spending continues to be a star performer in the recession, despite the downturn battering the high street, according to a report out today by Verdict Research. Online retail purchases are set to rise in 2009 by 13.3 per cent to £20.9bn. In a stark contrast, overall retail growth is expected to contract by 0.6 [...]
PINEWOOD TAKES ON HOLLYWOOD June 1, 2009 PINEWOOD Studios, where the Dark Knight and Quantum of Solace films were made, yesterday submitted its final planning application to double in size, in a bid to rival Hollywood and cheaper rivals elsewhere. It plans to invest £200m to develop permanent state of the art film facilities – including a Parisian square and a Venice [...]