Rothschild hired to advise on financing Heathrow or Gatwick airport runway expansion April 9, 2015 Investment bankers at Rothschild are working for the Department for Transport, it emerged yesterday, as officials want to work out how the Heathrow or Gatwick runway expansion could be financed. Sir Howard Davies is leading a commission looking at the different proposals to increase capacity at the airports, which each come with varying price tags. [...]
Manchester Airport cashing in on turbulence at London rivals April 9, 2015 Manchester Airport is aiming to rival London’s airports after a record number of passengers passed through its doors last year. The UK’s third largest airport dealt with 22.32m people in the last financial year, which represents growth of 7.5 per cent year-on-year and beats the previous record of 22.26m passengers in a 12-month period, set [...]
UK Gas and Oil Investments’ share price exploded today after Horse Hill oil discovery April 9, 2015 Shares in exploration company UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) exploded after the discovery of up to 100bn barrels in its oil field in Sussex. UKOG's Aim-listed shares gushed higher than an oil well – up more than 300 per cent at its highest in early trading and closing 164 per cent up for the day. [...]
IMF’s Christine Lagarde on the three big risks to the global economy April 9, 2015 Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, has said that the global economy risks slipping into a "new mediocre" which implies a prolonged period of low economic growth. "[The] global recovery continues, but it is moderate, and uneven," she said ahead of the release of the IMF's economic forecasts next week. The last forecasts released in [...]
Poundland-99p Stores tie-up threatened by Competition and Markets Authority April 9, 2015 Poundland's offer to buy rival 99p Stores for £55m is facing an in-depth investigation by the competition watchdog, amid concerns reduced competition will lead to reduced quality, fewer promotions and store closures. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it believes the tie-up could create "a realistic prospect of less competition" in 80 local areas – [...]
Ed Miliband’s non-dom policy “ignores all evidence” and could backfire, says Adam Smith Institute April 9, 2015 Ed Miliband's reform to the non-dom system ignores all the evidence, risks costing the country money and could make the UK less attractive to entrepreneurs. That's the verdict of a new briefing paper from the Adam Smith Institute that aims to separate fact from fiction when it comes to the political rhetoric surrounding non-doms. In [...]
Living standards are finally rising – but only in the North April 9, 2015 Is the North-South divide about to flip on its head? A new report suggests living standards are finally beginning to rise – but only up North. According to the research, by think tank the Resolution Foundation, although typical weekly incomes rose after the financial crisis, after 2009-10 they began to fall again, hitting a low [...]
Mulberry ups profit forecast with retail sales on track and cost controls April 9, 2015 The figures A more successful second half of the year for Mulberry will help it bring in profit for the full-year ahead of expectations, citing careful cost controls as a factor. Retail revenue for the year is expected to come in one per cent higher on the previous year and overall revenue will be in [...]
Co-operative Group returns to profit amid turnaround plan April 9, 2015 The Co-operative Group has returned to profit – a reversal of fortunes on the previous year's losses of £255m. The figures Full-year profit before member payments – the equivalent of pre-tax profits for a PLC – came in at £124m in 2014. Revenues slipped slightly, down three per cent at £9.4bn for the year to [...]
Helge Lund: The £28m BG Group man who missed his big day out in London April 8, 2015 Oil giant Shell and its takeover target BG Group sent their top executives into the City yesterday to face questions over the proposed £47bn deal, a transaction that would create the largest company on the FTSE. However, one man was notable by his absence – BG’s chief executive Helge Lund, who was deemed so valuable [...]