Foxtons chief executive makes £52m from oversubscribed float September 22, 2013 FOXTONS chief executive Michael Brown has made £52.2m by reducing his stake in the estate agent to 8.8 per cent on Friday’s oversubscribed public offering. The London flotation raised £335m for selling shareholders, including majority owner private equity group BC Partners, and management such as Brown. Brown had 45.5m shares before the listing, selling 22.7m [...]
Greece expects primary budget surplus for 2013 September 22, 2013 GREECE and its lenders are close to agreeing that Greece will achieve a primary budget surplus this year, a senior Finance Ministry official told reporters yesterday after senior Greek and EU and IMF officials met. Hitting a primary budget surplus, before interest payments, is key for Greece because it would trigger a clause in its [...]
Lambert wants US banks to join standards body September 22, 2013 RICHARD Lambert, former director general of the Confederation of British Industry, who was appointed by Britain’s biggest banks to set up a new independent banking standards body on Thursday, is calling for the big US banks to sign up. The body will be independent from the banking industry, and has been initiated following a recommendation [...]
Thousands queue for last peek inside Battersea Power Station September 22, 2013 THOUSANDS queued this weekend to get a last glimpse of the iconic Battersea Power Station before it undergoes an £8bn redevelopment. The Art Deco landmark was one of 700 sites being opened up to visitors as part of the Open House project. Police helped manage the large crowd, allowing 18,000 people to look inside the [...]
Patten calls for BBC’s senior staff to be cut September 22, 2013 CHRIS Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, yesterday called for a reduction in the number of BBC senior managers by half over the next two years. In a speech at the Prix Italia broadcasting awards in Turin last night, Patten called for the nearly 600 senior managers currently employed to be reduced to less than [...]
Confidence lifts value of market for UK flotations September 22, 2013 THE value of UK initial public offerings (IPOs) has soared to $7.16bn (£4.47bn) this year – more than eight times the amount raised by this time last year, according to Dealogic data. A list of 39 flotations this year includes monster deals such as the insurance company esure, with a deal value of more than [...]
Topshop to launch 28 shops in US to kick off 150-store growth September 22, 2013 ARCADIA GROUP plans to open 28 Topshop stores in the US in the next month as part of a global expansion plan for 150 new franchise stores around the world over the next year. Owner Sir Philip Green said he had agreed to expand Topshop and Topman’s tie-up with US department store Nordstrom from 14 [...]
LoveFilm falls into the red due to investment September 22, 2013 ONLINE film and DVD service LoveFilm posted a loss of £21.2m in 2012, falling into the red due to an increase in costs. The company, which was acquired by US online retail giant Amazon in 2010, made a profit of £14m in 2011. But last year its earnings were hit by the cost of interest [...]
Wanda billionaire unveils plan for Chinese motion picture city September 22, 2013 CHINA’S richest man, property developer Wang Jianlin, raised the curtain on a planned 50bn yuan (£5.11bn) “motion-picture city” which he described as the biggest-ever single investment in the movie and television industry. Property developer Wang Jianlin, 58, founder of Dalian Wanda Group, was surrounded by Hollywood stars John Travolta, Nicole Kidman and Catherine Zeta-Jones yesterday [...]
Fiat assumes control of diesel engine maker after buying out GM September 22, 2013 THE Italian carmaker Fiat is planning to take full control of the diesel engine manufacturer VM Motori by buying out the half of the company owned by joint venture partner General Motors, Fiat said yesterday. VM Motori, based in the northern Italian city of Cento, is currently a 50:50 joint venture between Fiat and GM. [...]