Land Secs sells £200m shopping malls October 8, 2013 Land Securities and British Land yesterday agreed to sell their two Aberdeen shopping centres to F&C REIT for £189m. The two FTSE 100 property firms owned Bon Accord and St Nicholas shopping centres in Aberdeen through a 50:50 joint venture formed in 2004. Land Securities said the venture was due to expire after seven years [...]
London second-best for property cash October 8, 2013 London has retained its place as the world’s second largest property investment market behind New York, according to property consultancy firm Cushman & Wakefield. Investment volumes increased by six per cent to $32.3bn (£20bn) in the year to the end of June 2013. New York attracted the most commercial property investment during the last year, [...]
Microsoft pays bounty to hack expert October 8, 2013 Microsoft is paying a hacking expert more than $100,000 for finding security holes in its software, one of the largest such bounties awarded to date by a high-tech company. James Forshaw, who heads vulnerability research at London-based security consulting firm Context Information Security, won Microsoft’s first $100,000 bounty for identifying a new “exploitation technique” in [...]
Watchdog tells Lafarge Tarmac to sell off plant October 8, 2013 BRITAIN’S monopoly regulator yesterday said it wanted to boost competition in the cement industry by requiring Lafarge Tarmac, one of the major players, to sell a cement plant to a new entrant in the market. “The best way to disturb the balance of a market where producers have focused on retaining their respective market shares [...]
Peter Higgs wins Nobel prize for his work to find the God particle October 8, 2013 BRITISH scientist Peter Higgs and Francois Englert of Belgium won the Nobel Prize for physics yesterday for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson particle, which explains how elementary matter attained the mass to form stars and planets. The insight has been hailed as one of the most important in the understanding of the cosmos. [...]
Victrex posts rise in full-year sales October 8, 2013 High-performance polymers manufacturer Victrex yesterday reported a slight rise in full-year sales to 2,920 tonnes from 2,904 tonnes last year. The firm said it made good progress in the industrial and transport sectors, but this was offset by lower sales in the electronics market. “Looking ahead to our new financial year, whilst we remain mindful [...]
Kentz awarded Qatargas contract October 8, 2013 FTSE 250 construction firm Kentz yesterday said it has won a contract with Qatargas, the Qatari liquefied natural gas producer. Under the agreement, Kentz will support the management of an expansion project over the next three years. No deal value was disclosed but analysts estimate it is worth in excess of $50m (£31.1m). “This year [...]
Nighthawk third quarter output rises October 8, 2013 Aim-listed oil explorer Nighthawk yesterday said third-quarter production from two of its projects in Colorado rose to 1,528 barrels of oil per day (bopd), compared to an average of 631 bopd in the second quarter. “The third quarter of 2013 was a very productive period for Nighthawk, with successful drilling and record production at Arikaree [...]
Menthols axed as EU votes for smoking rules October 8, 2013 MENTHOL cigarettes will be banned by 2022 and cigarette packet health warnings increased to cover 65 per cent of packaging according to new EU health rules voted on yesterday. The European Parliament voted to water down the European Commission’s proposed tobacco directive which included an immediate ban on menthol cigarettes and health warnings covering 75 [...]
Competition Commission orders Cineworld to sell three cinemas October 8, 2013 CINEWORLD has been told it must sell three of its cinemas in Aberdeen, Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge by the Competition Commission (CC) following an investigation triggered by Cineworld’s purchase of the Picturehouse chain. “The CC has concluded that the acquisition could lead to a substantial lessening of competition in the three areas where Cineworld [...]