Samsung picks British startup Bango for billing October 22, 2014 CAMBRIDGE-based carrier billings startup Bango has signed a deal with Samsung to preload its software on the South Korean tech giant’s smartphones, letting consumers charge games, music and videos directly from their mobile phone bills. Shares in the Aim-listed company jumped 5.76 per cent on the news to 101p in London, valuing Bango at over [...]
Japan’s e-commerce giant drives global rollout with launch of Rakuten.co.uk to replace Play.com October 22, 2014 Rakuten, the Japanese e-commerce giant and owner of messaging app Viber and Play.com, has launched an own-brand UK online marketplace similar to Ebay, which it says will subsume Play.com early next year. The site brings together goods sold directly by Rakuten as well as third-party retailers and digital media. “What consumers want from retailers is [...]
Media company Gorkana sold to Cision for £200m October 22, 2014 AMERICAN media group Cision yesterday snapped up British PR data company Gorkana in a deal estimated to be worth £200m. Exponent Private Equity sold the company, after building it up from Durrants, Metrica and Gorkana, merging the three into a combined group. Gorkana was founded in 2005 by former Brunswick PRs Michael Webster and Alex [...]
Events group UBM buoyed by overseas shows October 22, 2014 MARKETING and events group UBM said it is on track to hit targets on an underlying basis after performing well in its third quarter to 30 September. “While reported results will continue to be affected by currency movements, underlying performance remains on track for the full year with all three business segments expected to deliver [...]
London’s prime housing market hits the brakes October 22, 2014 PRIME London house prices will stay flat until the end of year, estate agent Marsh & Parsons (M&P) said today. Prices grew by just 0.5 per cent over the past three months. The buyers-to-property ratio has halved since the start of the year and now sits at 12 for each property for September. Meanwhile, the [...]
Construction work coming in at quickest rate seen this century October 22, 2014 THE CONSTRUCTION sector is continuing to pick up momentum, with workloads rising at their quickest rate for 20 years, new survey data shows today. The survey undertaken by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) uses net balances – the proportion of people giving a positive response minus the per cent of those giving a negative [...]
House building booming, but not by enough October 22, 2014 UK HOUSE building has hit its highest level for seven years, but there is still a “chronic shortage” of housing, a leading home warranty provider said today. The number of new homes increased eight per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, figures from the National House Building Council (NHBC) have shown. Much of the growth was [...]
Development Securities is still confident despite fall in profits October 22, 2014 LEADING property company Development Securities yesterday posted a decline in pre-tax profit for the half year to the end of August, after its was hit by exceptional costs. It posted a pre-tax profit of £7.4m, down from £8.1m a year before. This was due to a big uptick in direct costs, £2.7m in acquisition costs [...]
Galliford wins £77m projects in Northamptonshire and Surrey October 22, 2014 CONTRACTOR Galliford Try yesterday announced it had been appointed to construct two building projects, totalling £77m, including the construction of council offices for Northamptonshire County Council. Galliford will build the 17,600 square metre council offices and a cafe in a regeneration area on the south side of Northampton, in a contract worth £38m. It has [...]
Tesco firefighter Dave Lewis has no time to pause as results come in October 22, 2014 It's day 53 for Dave Lewis as chief executive of Tesco. Ordinarily, that might be a time for a new boss to pause for breath, but the firefighting engulfing him since his arrival looks like the first act of a much longer-term drama. The word emerging from Tesco’s Cheshunt HQ is that there will [...]