Lloyds’ lock-up on St James’s Place ends November 24, 2013 THE FORMAL lock-up on Lloyds’ holding of St James’ Place shares expires today, removing one obstacle to the bank selling more stock in the wealth management unit. When the bank sold £450m worth of stock in May it agreed not to sell any more for another 180 days – a lock-up period which runs out [...]
Smaller firms plan jobs spree in the next year November 24, 2013 SMALLER listed companies are aiming to create more than 200,000 new jobs in the next year, with almost three-quarters of these firms looking to hire in spite of a tough time securing funds. The businesses polled by the Quoted Companies Alliance and accountancy group BDO expect to expand their workforce by an average of 5.8 [...]
LGPS pension funds labelled as inefficient November 24, 2013 RESTRUCTURING the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) could save taxpayers nearly £1bn a year, the Centre for Policy Studies think tank claims. In a report out today pensions analyst Michael Johnson says the LGPS, which is the largest funded pension scheme in the UK, is “woefully inefficient”. It adds that while the scheme has total [...]
Comparison sites probed over claims of poor insurance coverage November 24, 2013 PRICE comparison websites could be failing to sell customers insurance that meets their needs, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned yesterday, launching a probe into the way the sites operate. The City watchdog is concerned that rankings of products by price on the sites may fail to explain to customers the details of the products [...]
Xbox One sells a million consoles in first weekend November 24, 2013 MICROSOFT sold more than 1m new Xbox One consoles over the weekend, breaking its previous record with the Xbox 360 and matching Sony’s PlayStation 4 (PS4) launch numbers from last weekend. “We are humbled and grateful for the excitement of Xbox fans around the world,” said Xbox vice president of marketing and strategy Yusuf Mehdi, [...]
Crowdfunding platform Seedrs to start £500,000 push into Europe with investment from its users November 24, 2013 SEEDRS, the London-based equity crowdfunding service, is expanding its funding platform out to Europe following the success of rival service Kickstarter – which has raised $612m (£377m) in funding since 2009. To fund the European rollout Seedrs is calling on its users to raise the £500,000 needed, in return for an 8.8 per cent stake [...]
Businesses warned of changing attitudes to online data privacy November 24, 2013 CONSUMERS are becoming increasingly cautious about the data they share with companies following the increasing number of high profile data breaches, according to research from EY. Over the next five to 10 years changing attitudes around personal data could see companies restricted from collecting data that drives advertising business models used by Google and Facebook. [...]
UK’s oldest manufacturer goes online November 24, 2013 THE WHITECHAPEL Bell Foundry – which claims to be the oldest manufacturing company in the UK – has pulled itself into the 21st century with the launch of its first online store. The firm, which has cast and sold bells from its East London premises since 1570, has set up the new offering via Swedish [...]
Lucky Voice signs karaoke deal with Luminar November 24, 2013 LUCKY Voice – the karaoke business started by LastMinute.com co-founder Martha Lane Fox – announced its first deal with The Luminar Group yesterday to run karaoke services at Pryzm, the company’s flagship club in Kingston upon Thames, as part of the club’s £1m redesign.
London leads UK in setting up new businesses November 24, 2013 TENS of thousands more firms were created than closed in the first six months of 2013, with London leading Britain’s entrepreneurial drive, according to a Barclays report out today. The total number of active firms jumped by more than 90,000 from the end of 2012 to June 2013. That took the total up 3.4 per [...]