Qantas settles pay disputes after a stand-off lasting more than a year December 18, 2011 AUSTRALIA’S Qantas Airways has agreed a pay deal with the engineers’ union, one of the three unions that the airline has had a stand-off for over a year, The Australian newspaper said yesterday. Qantas has reached an agreement with the engineers’ union and would present the deal to the labour umpire, the report said, adding [...]
Sherlock Holmes tops US box office December 18, 2011 Action adventure film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows led a trio of sequels at the US box office over the weekend with $40m in ticket sales, according to studio estimates compiled yesterday. The sequel to 2009’s Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. beat Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, the third film in the popular [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS December 18, 2011 The Miles Partnership Sue Shipley is to join the search firm as a partner to specialise in retail. Shipley was previously the global practice leader at Odgers Berndtson, where she led successful searches for the chief executives of Primark and Thorntons, the managing director of Wickes, and the director general of the British Retail Consortium. [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS December 18, 2011 BP Evolution has maintained its “buy” recommendation on BP, after the oil giant settled its dispute with contractor Cameron over the Macondo accident – although its target price of 510p is at “the lower end” of a valuation range that scales to 771p/sh. Evolution also notes that BP is talking to Ophir Energy about farming [...]
PwC faces probe over auditing of BarCap December 16, 2011 Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is being investigated over its auditing of Barclays Capital Securities in relation to the investment bank’s compliance with rules governing the protection of client money. The Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board said on Friday its investigation would cover PwC’s conduct in preparing reports on Barclays Capital, the investment banking arm of [...]
Fresh French assault on UK economy December 16, 2011 French Finance Minister Francois Baroin added to the verbal assault on the UK economy by his country’s officials as France struggles to cope with the threat of an imminent ratings downgrade. “The economic situation in Britain today is very worrying, and you’d rather be French than British in economic terms,” Baroin told Europe 1 radio. [...]
Laura Ashley closes stores as online sales rise December 16, 2011 British fashion and homeware retailer Laura Ashley added to the gloom on the high street by reporting a decline in sales in its stores in recent weeks, but said that online business was booming. The firm closed five stores this year, on top of the fourteen it closed last year, and said that overall UK [...]
Miners fuel FTSE gains December 16, 2011 The FTSE 100 continued where it left off in the last session with a moderate rally fuelled by positive data from the US. US weekly jobless claims fell to a three-year low suggesting that its economic recovery was still on track. But markets still remain braced for credit rating downgrades for Eurozone countries as agencies [...]
Sports Direct ditches Blacks bid December 16, 2011 Sports Direct has decided not to proceed with an offer for Blacks Leisure. Earlier this week Blacks Leisure, the struggling outdoor goods company, said it had received an expression of interest from Sports Direct International, amongst a number of others, “which may or may not lead to an offer being made.” Sports Direct said in [...]
Punch struggles as Spirit rises December 16, 2011 Pub group Punch Taverns said like-for-like net income from its core estate for the first 16 weeks of the new financial year fell 1.5 per cent, while sales at its demerged unit Spirit Pub Co for the same period rose 6.2 per cent. Punch’s average net income per pub across the full estate, however, rose [...]