CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS May 22, 2012 Artesian Solutions Dr Steve Garnett has been appointed chairman of the brand surveillance software firm. He is currently chairman, Europe at salesforce.com. Garnett started his career at Oracle, prior to its initial public offering, where he was director of UK sales and vice president of European marketing and alliances. He has also served as vice [...]
BEST of the BROKERS May 22, 2012 DOMINO’S PIZZA Liberum Capital has upgraded the pizza delivery company from “sell” to “hold” with a target price of 414p, and raises its full-year earnings per share by five per cent. The broker says Domino’s should benefit from the recent bad weather, and expects a strong trading update on 23 July. INVESTEC Numis rates the [...]
Eurozone consumer confidence nudges up May 22, 2012 Eurozone consumer confidence nudged higher in May, though inflation and unemployment continued to temper improvements in sentiment. The European Commission said a flash estimate showed euro zone consumer morale rose to -19.3 in May. That compared to a revised -19.9 in April, for which the Commission had previously reported a figure of -19.8. In the [...]
Tesco chief turns down £372,000 bonus May 22, 2012 Tesco boss Philip Clarke has opted not to take an annual bonus of about £372,000 following a poor performance by the world’s third-biggest retailer in its main British market. Shares in Tesco, which issued a shock profit warning in January, have lost almost a quarter of their value this year and the company is now [...]
FTSE rises fuelled by miners May 22, 2012 The FTSE 100 picked up again this morning as some of last week’s losses were recouped. Hopes that Eurozone leaders were making progress as they tackled the debt mountain engulfing the bloc helped sentiment. One of the ideas to save struggling economies is to issue eurobonds. But an OECD report warned that the fragile global [...]
Inflation falls to two-year low May 22, 2012 UK inflation dropped in April taking the Consumer Prices Index measure to three per cent. The rate fell from 3.5 per cent in March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The figure was attributed to a fall in transport prices. This is the first time this Parliament that Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn [...]
Yell reports £1.4bn loss May 22, 2012 Debt-laden Yell Group posted a £1.42bn full year loss mostly due to a writedown of the value of operations and said it had appointed advisors to help put a new capital structure in place. Yell, best known for its printed Yellow Pages directories and struggling under the burden of debts mostly maturing in April 2014, [...]
Vodafone cuts sales targets as European markets struggle May 22, 2012 Vodafone cut a medium-term sales growth target as customers in southern Europe slashed spending and regulators upped the pressure on the world’s largest mobile operator. The company took impairment charges of £4bn relating to its businesses in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece. Vodafone posted full-year results in line with forecasts and said it expected growth [...]
M&S profit falls May 22, 2012 Marks & Spencer posted a 1.2 per cent fall in full-year underlying profit, its first decline in three years, as even its relatively older and more affluent customers were touched by the economic downturn. Britain’s biggest clothing retailer, which also sells homewares and upmarket foods, said on Tuesday it made a profit before tax and [...]
Thumbs down for Facebook May 21, 2012 FACEBOOK shares plunged on their second day of trading yesterday as traders rejected the social networking giant’s much-hyped flotation. Facebook shares sank by five per cent in pre-market trading, opening at $36.53 before dipping by as much as 14 per cent to a low of $33. The shares eventually settled at $34.03, a drop of [...]