Confidence at London firms falls sharply January 24, 2012 CONFIDENCE among London’s businesses has plummeted to its lowest level in two and a half years, according to a downbeat survey released this morning. Targeted tax cuts are needed to help kick start economic expansion in London, the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) demanded. Fewer than four in 10 (38 per cent) of [...]
Child’s play: the UK toy market in 2011 January 24, 2012 THE UK was the top European market for toy sales in 2011, despite modest growth of just three per cent over the year. Sales in the Christmas week boosted figures, climbing 15 per cent thanks to the extra shopping day as Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday. In that one week alone sales totalled £131m, [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 24, 2012 RYANAIR Espirito Santo rates the airline “buy” and has a target price of €4.60. The broker is expecting the firm to post a net loss of €18m in its quarterly results next week, on revenues of €806m. It thinks Ryanair’s current trading is on track and that the firm’s decision to cut capacity over the [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 24, 2012 Liberum Capital Mark Godridge has joined the investment bank as chief executive of its US subsidiary Liberum Capital Inc. He joins from JP Morgan Cazenove, where he has led the European and emerging market sales team since the merger of the two companies in 2010. In the five years preceding the buyout, Godridge was president [...]
Codelco confident of Chile win January 24, 2012 Chilean state copper giant Codelco is confident it will triumph over Anglo American in a bitter legal battle centered on a disputed stake in the global miner’s assets in the country’s south. But it will be a long haul, Codelco’s lawyer Pedro Pablo Gutierrez said. He estimated the battle could drag on for three to [...]
DuPont misses Street forecasts January 24, 2012 DuPont’s quarterly revenue missed Wall Street expectations yesterday as its customers bought fewer solar-panel materials and digital television parts, offsetting strong demand for chemicals used in agriculture. Fourth-quarter profit was slightly ahead of Wall Street’s estimates, however, after DuPont raised prices by an average of 14 per cent. Without the increase, revenue would have been [...]
Banks peg back FTSE as Greece faces the abyss January 24, 2012 The rally on the FTSE 100 stalled this morning after talks to address the Greek debt crisis appeared to be floundering with the threat of a default casting a shadow. Financial stocks pinned the market back as Eurozone ministers yesterday rejected an offer made by private bondholders to help restructure Greece’s debts, sending negotiators back [...]
UK debt hits £1 trillion January 24, 2012 British public borrowing was lower than expected in December, thanks to stronger tax receipts, but total outstanding debt rose above the £1 trillion mark for the first time on record, official data showed. The Office for National Statistics said that public sector net borrowing excluding public sector interventions – the government’s preferred measure – fell [...]
Eurozone service sector in boost January 24, 2012 The Eurozone may yet escape recession thanks to a surprise upturn in the service sector that outweighed the ongoing contraction in manufacturing this month, surveys showed on Tuesday. Markit’s Flash Euro zone Purchasing Managers’ Composite Index (PMI), often seen as a growth indicator, jumped to 50.4 from December’s 48.3, its highest reading in four months. [...]
Cairn investors force U-turn on £2.5m payout to Gammell January 24, 2012 Oil explorer Cairn Energy dropped plans to award chairman and founder Bill Gammell share options worth £2.5m, bowing to pressure from investors. Cairn had wanted to reward Gammell, a former Scottish international rugby player who in 1980 founded what is now a FTSE 100 blue-chip company, for helping pull off the $5.5bn (£3.5bn) sale of [...]