Entertainment One posts 31m loss as costs grow June 24, 2009 MEDIA group Entertainment One reported a full year pre-tax loss of £31m yesterday, up from £7.7m last year, but said it was well placed for further growth. Entertainment One, which buys and distributes film, TV and music content in the UK, Canada and the US, said that higher costs and non-cash impairment charges had driven [...]
Tanfield gets green car funding June 24, 2009 Electric carmaker Tanfield said yesterday it will develop and trial 16 new green vehicles after being deemed eligible for half the funding total allocated by the government to the Ultra Low Carbon Vehicle Demonstrator Programme. Tanfield will receive half of the projected total project cost of £3.2m. It will develop five people carriers and one [...]
Lees Foods hits sweet spot June 24, 2009 Scottish cake and sweets firm Lees Foods said yesterday it expects profits for the first six months of the year to be ahead of last year, due to a combination of increased demand from existing customers, a number of key new account openings and the introduction of new products to its portfolio. The firm, which [...]
Ad spend to recover in 2010 June 24, 2009 Group M, part of media giant WPP, said yesterday that it expects global advertising spend to fall 5.5 per cent to £417bn in 2009, with a mild recovery expected in 2010 – when the decline should ease to 1.4 per cent. Based on a 70-country report, the group said that the ad market recovery would [...]
Monsanto beats expectations June 24, 2009 Monsanto, the world’s biggest seed company, posted a smaller-than-expected profit drop and planned a restructuring to cut about 900 employees and realign its declining herbicide business, sending its shares higher. Monsanto, a leader in development of genetically modified crops, said net income for the third quarter totaled $694m.
KKR shelves US listing for now June 24, 2009 PRIVATE equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) said yesterday it plans to merge into its Amsterdam-listed fund, which will remain listed on the Euronext exchange, as it kept the door open for a proposed listing in New York. KKR’s plans to follow in rival Blackstone’s footsteps and become a publicly traded, NYSE-listed company were originally [...]
Isle of Man signs up to EU rules on savings tax June 24, 2009 THE Isle of Man, a British Crown dependency, yesterday said it would ensure that its savings tax regime adhered to European Union rules on bank account secrecy by 2011. Until now, savers with offshore bank accounts in the self-governing dependency have been able to pay a withholding tax instead of having information about their savings [...]
Ranks of the rich dwindle amid turmoil June 24, 2009 THE GLOBAL financial crisis has seen the ranks of the world’s wealthiest people shrink, according to the World Wealth Report released by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini yesterday. The number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) – those with at least $1m (£608,908) in assets excluding primary residences – fell 14.9 per cent to 8.6m in [...]
CITY VIEWS: HAVE YOU SEEN MANY STAFF GO SELF-EMPLOYED IN THE RECESSION? June 24, 2009 MARK PRATT BERWIN LEIGHTON“I already know a number of people who have been made redundant from large companies and set themselves up as self-employed. I think sometimes people will take the plunge because they want to, but often it will be needs must.” STEPHEN AYME NATIXIS“Yes, I’ve seen it happening. I think if people can [...]
Apple’s Jobs had a liver transplant June 24, 2009 APPLE chief executive Steve Jobs underwent a liver transplant at a Tennessee hospital and has “an excellent prognosis”, the hospital that performed the operation has confirmed. Jobs, 54, received the transplant because he was “the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available,” the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute [...]