Card Factory suffers loss as closures rip through festive sales January 14, 2021 Closed stores over the Christmas period meant Card Factory suffered significant losses, sending its shares down 4.1 per cent this morning. Card Factory experienced a year-on-year decline of over 38 per cent, where forced store closures prohibited openings for 37 per cent of available trading days. Sales over the eleven-month period fell from almost £425m [...]
Hostelworld in talks with lenders over €30m facility after lockdown restrictions hit bookings January 13, 2021 Hostelworld is in talks with lenders over a new €30m (£26.7m) debt facility after taking “minimal” bookings in the final few months of last year. The budget accommodation platform said global travel demand remained muted in the fourth quarter of 2020, and trading continued to deteriorate from August until the end of the year due [...]
Pressure mounts on big four supermarkets as Lidl enjoys record Christmas sales January 13, 2021 Lidl has strengthened the pressure on its competitors by remaining the fastest growing retailer against the UK’s big four supermarkets of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons. The German chain achieved a record Christmas in 2020 with overall sales increasing 17.9 per cent in the same four-week December period versus the previous year. With Christmas favourites [...]
Metrica Sports: Meet the tech company which works with FC Barcelona giving away its football analytics software to amateurs January 13, 2021 Barcelona were one of Metrica Sports’ first clients but it was when the video and data analysis provider signed up Stockport County that its founders knew they were really onto something. The company, created in 2013 by three football-mad neuroscience PhD students, proved quick to gain a foothold with a handful of elite clubs thanks [...]
QuadReal pumps nearly $1bn in London property January 12, 2021 Property group QuadReal has spent nearly $1bn to acquire a majority stake in seven London-based assets owned by Realstar UK. The Canadian asset manager partnered with Realstar to invest in four rental properties in New Cross, Stockwell and a 45-story tower in the heart of Elephant & Castle. Realstar CEO Ryan Prince said, “Far [...]
UK antibody trial to test early intervention in patients with mild to moderate Covid-19 January 12, 2021 Vir Biotechnology and global healthcare company GSK announced today an agreement with the UK-based AGILE initiative to evaluate a treatment in patients with mild to moderate Covid-19. Preclinical data suggests that the neutralising antibody VIR-7832 has distinguishing properties which enhance the ability to clear infected cells and boost the function of virus-specific T cells, which [...]
Formula One postpones Australian GP, China uncertain January 12, 2021 By Alan Baldwin LONDON (Reuters) – Formula One postponed the Australian Grand Prix from March to November, with Bahrain opening the season and China’s race left hanging, as COVID-19 forced the sport to rewrite the 2021 calendar on Tuesday. Italy’s Imola circuit was added to the record 23-round schedule as the second race on April [...]
500+ LSE-listed companies cancelled, cut or suspended dividend payments last year January 11, 2021 Just over 500 companies listed on London Stock Exchange cancelled, cut or suspended dividend payments in 2020, according to new research by investment solution provider GraniteShares. It seems that no segment of the market was immune, as 52 FTSE 100 companies amended their dividend policies last year, as well as 117 FTSE 250 firms and 151 [...]
Sir Keir Starmer: Don’t hit UK families with tax hikes January 10, 2021 Sir Keir Starmer has called for the government to reverse its decision last year to effectively raise council taxes, while casting Labour under his leadership as the “party of the family”. Starmer said the “importance of family hasn’t been talked about enough during this crisis” and that the country’s households deserve “far more from a [...]
Gove expects Brexit delays at the border with France and Ireland to worsen January 8, 2021 Gove expects Brexit delays at the border with France and Ireland to worsen