Thomas Cook sells holiday extras business Essential Travel for £2m December 11, 2013 THOMAS COOK yesterday sold its travel add-ons website Essential Travel to rival firm the Holiday Extras Group for £2.1m. The company said that it will still offer its customers the same services after striking a deal for Holiday Extras to be its exclusive distributor of certain extra travel products such as airport parking, airport hotels [...]
Carney warned low rate vow is too complicated December 11, 2013 THE BANK of England’s pledge to keep interest rates at rock bottom may be too complicated for families and businesses to understand, losing much of its impact, top policymaker Martin Weale warned yesterday. If the policy is understood by borrowers, forward guidance could boost the economy by up to 0.75 per cent, the monetary policy committee (MPC) [...]
India court seeks value of Nokia factory seized during tax dispute December 11, 2013 AN INDIAN court has extended a hearing over local tax authorities’ seizure of a Nokia factory by seeking information on the plant value, adding to concerns whether the company can transfer the property to Microsoft as part of the sale of its mobile phone business. Nokia has offered to pay a €270m (£227.3m) deposit to [...]
Xbox One sales top two million worldwide December 11, 2013 MICROSOFT has sold more than 2m Xbox One video game consoles since its 22 November launch, catching up with rival Sony’s PlayStation 4 released a week earlier. Microsoft yesterday said it took 18 days for Xbox One’s global sales to surpass 2m – a new company record. Sony last week said it took 15 days [...]
Capco’s Covent Garden scheme wins approval December 11, 2013 CAPITAL & Counties (Capco) was given the go-ahead by Westminster Council yesterday to build a leisure and residential scheme connecting two of Covent Garden’s busiest shopping areas. The developer wants to transform the space between King Street and Floral Street within its £1.1bn Covent Garden estate, creating a new public courtyard overlooked by eight shops, [...]
Zara Spanish owner Inditex says global expansion plans on track December 11, 2013 ZARA owner Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer, showed signs of leaving behind months of tepid sales growth yesterday as a budding European recovery boosted pre-Christmas trading and it said global expansion plans remained on track. Inditex, which also operates brands including teen label Bershka and upmarket Massimo Dutti, has struggled this year to match [...]
Bitcoin fund raises $65m in two months December 11, 2013 A FUND established to offer investors exposure to Bitcoin is holding around $65m (£39.7m) in the digital currency after two months in operation, its creator, SecondMarket chief executive officer Barry Silbert, said yesterday. Silbert said the fund, named the Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT), has 90 investors, among them hedge fund traders and private family investment [...]
Retail footfall suffers a drop December 11, 2013 BRITAIN’S high street suffered a fall in the number of shoppers in the week to 8 December despite the surge seen on the first Sunday of the month when retailers reported one of their busiest days. Figures published by Springboard today show that between Monday 2 to Sunday 8 December high street footfall dipped by [...]
YouTube eyes $5.6bn ad sales December 11, 2013 YOUTUBE’S advertising revenues are set to surge by more than 50 per cent to $5.6bn in 2013, according to a report that underlines the growing shift from traditional TV adverts to the internet. The report by eMarketer estimates YouTube is now so attractive to advertisers that it will account for 11 per cent of advertising [...]
Sledge-fund: Jogging santas take City by storm December 11, 2013 COMMUTERS in the City were treated to a rare spectacle on Tuesday night as hundreds of City workers pulled on red suits and took part in the Santa Dash running 5k for Brainwave. Teams from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and AIG (among others) all fought through the cold in a bid to raise some cash [...]