Low inflation in 2015 battered businesses as consumers rejoiced January 18, 2016 Businesses lost out to the tune of £16.8bn last year due to low inflation, new research given to City A.M. shows. Prices were only 0.1 per cent higher in November than a year ago, well below the Bank of England’s two per cent inflation target, and hovered around zero per cent for most of 2015. [...]
Lack of finance keeps smaller housebuilders trailing behind their bigger rivals January 18, 2016 Profits at the top UK housebuilders may have hit a pre-crisis high but their smaller rivals are still struggling to recover as funding for larger projects remains scarce, new research suggests. A construction boom has helped profit margins at larger housebuilders reach an average of 11.7 per cent for 2015 compared to their 2007 peak of 11.2 [...]
UK footfall slumps in December as Britons spend Christmas online January 18, 2016 Britain's high streets suffered their biggest drop in footfall in over a year in December, as Britons shunned stores in favour of buying Christmas presents online. Traffic fell by four per cent year-on-year, which is far greater than the drop of 1.8 per cent in December 2014 and marked the biggest drop since November that same [...]
Equistone takes £100m prime cut of Argentinian steak house Gaucho January 17, 2016 The Gaucho chain of Argentinian steak restaurants has been snapped up by a hungry buyout firm in a deal thought to be worth around £100m. Equistone, the private equity firm previously owned by Barclays, is said to have beaten other interested suitors to buy a majority stake in the chain. Gaucho’s founder, the Dutch entrepreneur Zeev [...]
Clydesdale Bank gears up for next month’s IPO with roadshow and expected price range this week January 17, 2016 Clydesdale Bank is set to reveal the price range of its London listing this week, with investors expecting shares to be offered at a discount from the bank’s book value of between £2bn and 2.5bn. The British banking business, which is currently owned by National Australia Bank (NAB), announced its intention to float on both [...]
Netflix cracks down on proxy servers to come to grips with out-of-market streaming after global launch January 16, 2016 Netflix isn’t happy about out-of-market streaming, and a crackdown is coming within weeks. Proxy servers are common among streaming enthusiasts who want to be able to watch content not available in your home country. By using proxies, you can trick the streaming service that video is being shown in a different country than it really [...]
Mining stocks lead the FTSE 100 index lower as share prices of Anglo American, Glencore, BHP Billiton slump January 15, 2016 More January blues for miners (and it wasn't exactly a great 2015 for them), as they led the FTSE 100 index lower this morning. The UK's blue-chip index fell 2.44 per cent to 5,773 points in mid-afternoon trade, led lower by Anglo American and Glencore. The FTSE is setting itself up for a loss of over seven [...]
Asda owner Walmart to close 269 stores as it ditches Walmart Express, its smallest-format chain, five years after they launched January 15, 2016 Asda owner Walmart has announced plans to close 269 stores – and scrapped its experiment with small-format stores altogether five years after they first launched. It seems US consumers' buying habits are vastly different to their British counterparts'… The supermarket giant – the world's largest company by number of employees, with 2.1m workers – said it was making the changes to "ensure [...]
Citigroup shares continue to slide despite better than expected earnings and revenue January 15, 2016 Citigroup shares slipped in pre-market trading – even after the American investment bank reported better than expected earnings in its fourth quarter reports. The figures Revenue of $18.5bn (£12.9bn), a four per cent increase on a year earlier, beat analysts' expectations of a figure closer to $17bn while earnings per share of $1.06 also beat [...]
Energy bills: Big six firms slammed for overcharging customers January 15, 2016 The energy regulator, Ofgem, has slammed the UK's "big six" energy companies for failing to pass on cheaper wholesale costs to customers. Dermot Nolan, the the head of Ofgem, said wholesale energy costs have fallen by about a third in the last 12 to 18 months. Despite this, the big six energy companies – British Gas, Npower, [...]