DINING OUT ON THE DOWNTURN October 18, 2009 CAPRICE Holdings, the restaurant empire behind celebrity haunts The Ivy and J Sheekey has defied the consumer downturn by posting a 20 per cent lift in underlying profits. The group, owned by rag trade millionaire Richard Caring (pictured), has grown earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to £16.7m in the financial year to the [...]
Lupus faces pay backlash October 18, 2009 LUPUS shareholders were up in arms last night after it emerged that the group’s temporary chief executive was on a much higher pay package than they had been led to believe. Turnaround specialist Keith Taylor was parachuted into the group as chief executive after chairman Greg Hutchings, a former Tomkins boss, was ousted in July. [...]
Post strikes will do most damage to Royal Mail October 18, 2009 IF THIS week’s postal strike goes ahead from Thursday, as expected, the Square Mile will not come to a grinding halt. The rise of the internet, email and electronic trading platforms mean that the Royal Mail’s integral role of facilitating business between City firms are long gone. I suspect that more damage will be caused [...]
City Moves for 19 October 2009 | Who’s switching jobs October 18, 2009 AvivaThe insurer has appointed Marie Sigsworth as its new corporate responsibility director. Sigsworth, who will be responsible for all aspects of corporate responsibility, including diversity, environment and community programmes and the global employee satisfaction survey, originally joined Aviva in 1986. Clifford ChanceThe law firm’s partners have elected Cliff McAuley to serve a further term as [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS October 18, 2009 CAPITAL & REGIONALKBC Peel Hunt upgraded their rating on FTSE 250 stock Capital & Regional from “hold” to “buy”, with a target price of 37p. The broker said that the new management has ensured the firm’s survival, along with a stabilisation of commercial property values, and that it is well placed to take advantage of [...]
ITVset to seek new recruiters after job fiasco October 18, 2009 ITV is likely to appoint new headhunters as soon as it has managed to find a suitable chairman. ITV currently employs Russell Reynolds as headhunter, but after the shambolic nature of its recruitment process it is believed the group is looking at other parties, including Carol Leonard at Inzito Partners. A source close to the [...]
Why next year will be critical for London’s army of M&A dealmakers October 18, 2009 WHEN Tim Jones, the London managing partner of global law giant Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, walks into a room, one is immediately struck by the fact that he still looks every inch the Wales B rugby prop forward he used be. However, as he settles down in one of his firm’s sixth-floor, oak-panelled meeting room, he [...]
The time has finally come to take a punt on the recovery October 18, 2009 THIS week’s eagerly anticipated third quarter GDP figure will be make or break for the UK economy. A return to growth, however modest, will confirm that the darkest days of the recession are indeed over and that we are on the slow path of recovery. But with recent industrial production data showing an unexpected slump [...]
The 10,000 mark means it’s time to short the Dow October 18, 2009 EQUITY bulls must have felt rather smug last week when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) broke through 10,000 on the back of bumper profits from investment banks JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Good results from Google, Intel and IBM also added to the market optimism that has been fuelling the index’s meteoric rise. The third [...]
POOR DATA TO KEEP LID ON STERLING RISE October 18, 2009 JANE FOLEYRESEARCH DIRECTOR, FOREX.COM AFTER falling to multi-month lows against both the euro and the US dollar, sterling was squeezed aggressively higher last week. The generally weak dollar allowed cable (sterling-dollar) to return to its best levels for over three weeks and against the euro, the pound only managed to win back about a fortnight’s [...]
