Bottom Line: Bolland has until the autumn to do better May 20, 2014 RELAUNCHING a retail website is not easy. Behind the flashy new design and faux editorial content that draws shoppers towards key products is layer upon layer of complex infrastructure – payment systems and forms and code and algorithms. Somewhere in that complex maze of programming, Marks & Spencer tripped up. Before its new site went live [...]
Thomas Piketty and the great inequality debate: The Ayn Rand response May 20, 2014 After weeks of debates and reviews Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty First Century is still a subject of fierce controversy and currently ranks 17 on the Amazon bestseller list. Piketty's argument that the rate of return on capital in capitalist economies tends to be higher than the growth rate, leading to a concentration of [...]
M&S profit falls less than expected as Bolland stresses step by step approach May 20, 2014 Marks and Spencer has reported a fall in profits for the third year in a row: in the year ended in March, the store saw a 3.9 per cent decrease in underlying pre-tax profit, to £623m. That is, however, considerably better than the 7.5 per cent drop analysts have been predicting. Pressured chief executive Marc [...]
Bill Gates’ firm Corbis buys UK sports marketer May 19, 2014 CORBIS Entertainment, owned by billionaire Bill Gates, today announced it has bought City-based sports marketing firm WSM Communications, in a deal set to create a sports and entertainment marketing group spread across both sides of the Atlantic. Corbis Entertainment is a division of Corbis, a digital content and entertainment rights company founded by Gates in [...]
City A.M. joins Chuka Umunna: a Brexit would be catastrophic for London firms May 19, 2014 WALKING around Labour-stronghold Burnt Oak with shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna feels a bit like knowing a minor celebrity. Some people clasp his hand and snap selfies, others brush past uninterested. “I don’t want to be the shadow secretary, I want to be the real thing!” Umunna tells one couple who run a curtain shop [...]
Zuck celebrates 2nd IPO-versary May 15, 2014 IT’S BEEN a big week for Mark Zuckerberg. He turned the big 3-0 on Wednesday (sadly we don’t know what the billionaire did to celebrate, we can but imagine) and he could today be celebrating the second year anniversary of Facebook’s initial public offering. On Friday 18 May 2012 Zuck brought his baby to market [...]
Mike Ashley in talks to buy 33 LA Fitness sites May 14, 2014 SPORTS Direct’s billionaire owner Mike Ashley has set his sights on expanding into the health and leisure industry, with plans to buy 33 sites from LA Fitness. The health club chain confirmed yesterday that it was in talks with the Newcastle United football club owner over the 33 sites, which had been put up for [...]
Capitalists shouldn’t be frightened of Piketty’s growth-retarding manifesto May 14, 2014 WHEN a book called Capital in the Twenty-First Century, written by a French economist, hits the top of the best-seller list, you have to ask why. It’s not exactly familiar territory, after all. The answer lies in a clash of worldviews. The conflict is between those, like the book’s author Thomas Piketty, who want to [...]
Why Mark Carney will be hoping his World Cup analogy isn’t too precise May 14, 2014 The Bank of England's governor has brought back an old favourite to the central bank's press conferences: sport analogies. Mark Carney has suggested that securing the UK's economic recovery so far has been "like making it through the qualifying rounds of the World Cup". A major achievement, but not the ultimate goal. The "real tournament" [...]
Mike Ashley rumoured to be close to LA Fitness deal May 14, 2014 Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley has moved to take on around 30 LA fitness sites, Sky News' City editor, Mark Kleinman, reports. The exuberant billionaire has agreed to offer a parent company guarantee to LA Fitness landlords regarding leases on the gyms, according to sources. One did say, however, that, despite a deal being imminent, things [...]