New Weetabix owner milks strong growth October 3, 2013 WEETABIX, the iconic cereal brand which also owns Alpen as well as Ready Brek, defied one of the worst wheat harvests in over half a century to post a six per cent rise in sales last year. The company, which was forced to scale back production of some of its mini ranges after UK crops [...]
Cotswold Outdoor’s earnings climb as web presence builds October 3, 2013 COTSWOLD Outdoor has rebounded from a tough few years with a 14.6 per cent rise in full-year sales to £103.4m. The firm, which has 68 stores selling climbing and camping equipment, said like-for-like sales jumped 6.8 per cent in 2012, helped by “very strong” web sales and four new branches opening during the year. Profits [...]
City Moves for 4 October 2013 | Who’s switching jobs October 3, 2013 Colliers International The property company has announced the appointment of Richard Eales as head of finance in the UK and Ireland. Eales was most recently at Hamptons International, where he was head of commercial finance for 11 years. He is a qualified accountant. Renaissance Capital Benjamin Samuels has been appointed global head of equities at the [...]
Best of the Brokers for 4 October 2013 October 3, 2013 INLAND HOMES Aim-listed Inland Homes has seen its target price upgraded to 60p by brokers at Fincapp, who say the company is well placed to take advantage of the house price boom in the south east. “Unit sales will rise quickly from 55 in 2012 to over 240 by 2015,” the analysts said. HOCHSCHILD MINING Analysts [...]
London Report: BP’s court win sees FTSE defy US shutdown October 3, 2013 THE FTSE 100 rose yesterday, boosted by heavyweight BP which won a rare legal battle related to its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but ongoing US government shutdown uncertainty sapped momentum. Energy firm BP – the UK’s fifth biggest company by market capitalisation – rose 1.1 per cent after it won a legal [...]
New York Report: Shares drop as stalemate in DC lingers on October 3, 2013 US STOCKS dropped yesterday as investors worried that a budget stalemate in Congress would become entangled with much more critical legislation to raise the federal borrowing limit. The standoff between congressional Democrats and Republicans to pass an emergency funding bill, which has led to a third day of a partial US government shutdown, continued with [...]
US treasury says default could mean worse crisis than in 2008 October 3, 2013 The US treasury has said that a government default would be unprecedented and potentially catastrophic, and could lead to a financial crisis worse than that seen in 2008. The United States has never defaulted on its obligations, and the U. S. dollar and Treasury securities are at the center of the international financial system. A [...]
Co-op bidder advised by ex-head of Northern Rock October 3, 2013 As first reported by Sky News' City editor Mark Kleinman, a private equity firm that is being advised by the former boss of Northern Rock, Adam Applegarth, is among the bidders for Co-op's blighted insurance arm. The bank was left with a £1.5bn hole in its finances following the Prudential Regulation Authority's ruling that it must [...]
IMF’s Lagarde calls on US to end budget squabbles October 3, 2013 The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Christine Lagarde has told politicians to act quickly in order to end a shutdown of the Federal government, as the government comes close to passing its debt ceiling on 17 October. Lagarde has said that the shutdown and failure to raise the ceiling could "very seriously hurt" both the US [...]
US non-manufacturing growth has slowed down in September October 3, 2013 US watchers have just seen a disappointing new datapoint. The ISM non-manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) is much lower than expected – at 54.4 in September. The weakest since May. Last month it was 58.6, and analysts had been anticipating a fall – but not one this big. They were forecasting a drop to 57.4. [...]