Hedge fund Elliott Advisors earns £59m after selling down stake in Game Digital September 18, 2014 GAME Digital’s US hedge fund owner Elliott Advisors has pocketed £58.5m after selling a chunk of its stake in the video games retailer, dragging shares down yesterday. Liberum Capital revealed yesterday it had sold 22.5m shares held behalf of Elliott Advisors through a Luxembourg-registered investment vehicle, Duodi. The tranche of shares, which was sold through [...]
Card Factory up on delivery of maiden results September 18, 2014 DISCOUNT greeting card shop Card Factory reported its half-year results yesterday, showing underlying profits that grew 9.3 per cent, but an overall £7.9m loss due to the costs of its initial public offering (IPO) in May. Revenues during the six months to 31 July rose 8.9 per cent to £149.4m on the back of an [...]
Eurozone QE more likely as banks decline offer of cheap funds from Super Mario September 18, 2014 EUROPE’S banks borrowed less than expected from the European Central Bank (ECB) yesterday, scotching boss Mario Draghi’s hopes that the offer of funds would help boost lending and so aid the economy. Instead, he may have to launch a fully fledged quantitative easing (QE) scheme to buy government debt. The 255 participating lenders took a [...]
Confident shoppers Hoover up vacuums ahead of Brussels’ ban September 18, 2014 THE UK recovery received a fresh boost from confident consumers splashing out in August, official figures showed yesterday. Retail sales were up 3.9 per cent on the year in August, driven by sales of luxury goods and powerful vacuum cleaners that are being banned by the European Union. There was a six per cent uptake in purchases [...]
City flocks for a taste of Boris’s Big Breakfast with Dr Fox and Richard Desmond September 18, 2014 Auch, it was nye on impossible to talk of anything other than Scotland yesterday, but Boris Johnson made a good stab at it over breakfast – hosting the London’s Big Breakfast charity campaign at City Hall with Magic FM’s Dr Fox and The Mayor’s Fund for London. Richard Desmond was there chatting to primary school [...]
Stephen King’s Milan horror as he’s mistaken for someone else September 18, 2014 Oh we do love a good case of mistaken identity. HSBC’s global chief economist Stephen King jetted into Milan yesterday, to give a talk at a client conference about new emerging geographies. On finishing his oration, a man approached asking him to autograph a copy of his book for his wife. King’s economic page-turner, When [...]
Leafing street level for top of Walkie Talkie September 18, 2014 Don’t look down: The moment a tree is hoisted up by crane to the top of 20 Fenchurch St before being guided down into its soon-to-be-launched Sky Garden on levels 35, 36 and 37.
Canary Wharf’s shopping malls boost Songbird Estates September 18, 2014 Songbird Estates, the listed property giant behind London’s Canary Wharf Group, said the value of its shopping centres had reached a record £1bn in the first half of the year as the company pushed ahead with a new mall above its planned Crossrail station. The company is building 115,000 square feet of retail [...]
London rent prices hit record high as new mortgage loans keep climbing September 18, 2014 London rents hit a record high of £1,161 on average last month, according to figures out today from LSL Property Services. Monthly rents in the capital climbed three per cent on the year – an increase which was ahead of wages, intensifying the pressure on tenants. Across England and Wales, the average rent increased by 2.4 [...]
News Corp calls on EU regulator to reconsider Google settlement September 18, 2014 NEWS CORP, publisher of The Sun, The Times and The Wall Street Journal, has attacked Google’s European dominance, labelling the search giant’s offering a “platform of piracy”. In a letter last week to European Commissioner for Competition Joaquin Almunia, News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson said Google had changed from “a company that is ‘open’ [...]