Millennium ups dividend payout February 22, 2012 MILLENNIUM and Copthorne, the owner of a chain of hotels including the Chelsea Football Club hotel, has posted record profits for 2011 and upped its annual payout to shareholders. Underlying profits before tax jumped by 43.7 per cent to £184.7m in the year to December, boosted by the sale and leaseback of its Studio M [...]
Travis Perkins earnings surge February 22, 2012 TRAVIS PERKINS, the building merchant and home improvements retailer, said it was continuing to win market share, helping to drive profits up by 37 per cent last year, despite a depressed construction market. The owner of brands including Wickes DIY chain posted adjusted pre-tax profits of £297m while revenues surged by 52 per cent to [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: CAN BARRATT BUILD ON ITS STRONG RESULTS? February 22, 2012 ROBIN HARDY | PEEL HUNT Barratt has risen 50 per cent in less than six weeks even though little has changed in its expected trading patterns and despite it making still unacceptably low returns. It risks being a case of better to travel than to arrive and we would now advise investors to carve out [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 22, 2012 Accor Hotel operator Accor has appointed Thomas Dubaere as managing director for UK and Ireland. Dubaere has worked for Accor for over 22 years, most recently as managing director, budget brands Accor UK & Ireland. Dubaere began his career with Accor in Belgium in 1990 at the Novotel Bruges Centre, and held several general manager [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 22, 2012 COOKSON Deutsche Bank has upgraded the materials specialist to “buy” from “hold” and upped its target price from £6 to £8, citing low consensus forecasts and a very inexpensive current price as a catalyst. The broker sees the first half of this year as the low point in the industrial and steel cycles, and expects [...]
Edinburgh Woollen Mill saves 6,000 Peacocks jobs February 22, 2012 British clothing retailer Edinburgh Woollen Mill is to acquire two thirds of discount clothing retailer Peacocks, in a deal which will see 6,000 jobs saved. Administrators KMPG said they had agreed the sale of 388 stores from Cardiff-headquartered Peacocks but another 224 stores would be closed immediately, leading to 3,100 redundancies. Peacocks called administrators in [...]
Banks fork out £1.9bn for insurance mis-selling February 22, 2012 Lenders paid out a record £441m in compensation for insurance mis-selling in December, taking payouts for 2011 to £1.9bn and raising the prospect of an even bigger bill this year. The financial regulator said payouts in December jumped 16 per cent from the previous record of £379m in November. Aside from September, there has been [...]
Bank mulled even more QE in February February 22, 2012 Two Bank of England policymakers voted for a bigger stimulus to the economy in February than their colleagues could support, minutes to the Bank’s February 8-9 meeting showed on Wednesday. The news is likely to re-open the debate about whether the central bank will add further quantitative easing in May, especially as the minutes showed [...]
Shell bids $1.6bn for Cove February 22, 2012 Royal Dutch Shell has made a ($1.6bn) £992.4m bid for Mozambique-focused Cove Energy, offering a full price to open up a new gas frontier for the Anglo-Dutch oil major in East Africa. Shell has offered 195 pence per share in cash, which Cove’s directors said Wednesday they would recommend to shareholders. Tuesday, Cove’s shares closed [...]
Barratt swings to profit February 22, 2012 Housebuilder Barratt swung into profit in the six months to 31 December as revenues climbed. Pre tax profits of of £21.6m compared with a loss of £4,6m in the same period the previous year, Revenues jumped by 8.6 per cent to £952.8m while the average selling price of its homes increased by 3.1 per cent [...]