Stan Chart on adviser hunt December 2, 2014 STANDARD Chartered is considering scrapping UBS or JP Morgan as its corporate brokers, as it reviews its representatives in the marketplace. Brokers offer advice to firms and keep them in contact with investors. “We can confirm we’re conducting a review of our corporate broking relationships,” said a spokesperson at Standard Chartered. “The review will include our [...]
Black Friday sales record for John Lewis December 2, 2014 JOHN Lewis has recorded its best ever week of sales in its 150-year history thanks to shoppers rushing to snap up bargains on Black Friday last week. The department store sold one tablet every second and a Samsung 40-inch Smart TV every minute.
TalkTalk boss Dido Harding doesn’t fear quad play UK December 2, 2014 As deal fever sweeps the sector, the head of Britain’s budget broadband business isn’t fazed. Dido Harding feels quite relaxed despite the past two weeks’ explosive telecoms deal talk that foreshadows what could be the largest period of consolidation the sector has ever seen. If anything, the chief executive of Britain’s budget broadband provider – [...]
Read all about it: The Times posts its first annual profit in 13 years December 2, 2014 Times Newspapers (TNL) yesterday posted a £1.7m operating profit for the year ending 30 June 2014, the first time it has made a profit since 2001. The publisher of the Times and Sunday Times, part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, last year recorded a loss of nearly £6m. Five years ago, in the year before [...]
Merlin on bumpy ride in Thailand as political unrest upsets Siam Ocean World and Madame Tussauds trading December 2, 2014 Legoland and Alton Towers operator Merlin Entertainments warned yesterday that its two attractions in Bangkok were still suffering from poor trading after months of political unrest and a military coup in Thailand. The world’s second-largest amusement park operator after Disney said that while the rest of its Midway portfolio performed well, its Siam Ocean World [...]
Europe set for flurry of bank M&A when rules settle down December 2, 2014 BANKS are preparing for a wave of mergers and acquisitions as Europe’s new more co-ordinated regulation makes it easier to do business across borders, analysts at Scope Ratings said yesterday. Few Eurozone banks have snapped up rivals in recent years, preferring to bolster their own positions and work to match ever-changing regulations. But now the [...]
Ed Richards delivers blow to Royal Mail as Ofcom rejects competition claims and launches investigation December 2, 2014 The postal service is finding it tough grappling with rivals while having to provide the universal service. Royal Mail was hit by a double-whammy of bad news yesterday after Ofcom rejected its claims that competition was undermining its ability to deliver a nationwide service. On top of that rejection, the regulator said it was launching [...]
Watchdog: Fixing bank culture is like the drink driving campaign December 2, 2014 Banking culture has barely changed so far, despite the billions of pounds of fines imposed on lenders, the City watchdog’s enforcement boss said yesterday. Instead of expecting quick results, Tracey McDermott compared the challenge to the generation-long effort to stop drink driving. “We are still some way short of the corner that needs to be turned,” [...]
Sky faces its big match in fight with BT for Premier League TV football December 2, 2014 Sometime early next year – and no one knows precisely when such is the secrecy surrounding the process – the Premier League will launch an auction to decide who will broadcast live matches for three seasons from 2016-17. And analysts are divided over whether Sky, which has held most of the broadcast rights since the [...]
GW Pharma looking to rock the joint with cannabis-based epidiolex treatment for epilepsy December 2, 2014 British drugmaker GW Pharmaceuticals yesterday posted a widened full-year, pre-tax loss, as it ramped up development of its cannabis-based epidiolex treatment for childhood epilepsies. The biopharmaceutical company, dual listed on Aim in London and Nasdaq in New York, said it expected to complete much of the development programme for epidiolex in 2015. It would then start [...]