The Phone War October 25, 2005 Richard Branson and Charles Dunstone lead our troops into battle over mobile networks in France. Precisely 200 years after Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, a new Anglo-French battlefront has opened up, this one over mobile telephone networks. Sir Richard Branson is leading the troops in this latest skirmish. Yesterday, he announced a joint venture with Carphone [...]
England set for challenge October 25, 2005 England leave for their tour of Pakistan this morning confident of a safe stay on the subcontinent but also well aware that it will be a difficult couple of months. The squad gathered at Heathrow yesterday with the right noises being made about security in a country recently devastated by the Asian earthquake. Captain Michael [...]
Expect Monty to make his move at Masters October 25, 2005 The European season comes to a close this week with the traditional finale at Valderrama — the Volvo Masters. And I fully expect Colin Montgomerie to crown a remarkable return to form with an unprecedented eighth Order of Merit title. Monty goes into the tournament knowing exactly what he’s doing. The man is on very [...]
Murray will face Henman October 25, 2005 Tim Henman and Andy Murray will meet in anger on a tennis court for the first time tomorrow in round one of the Swiss Indoor Tournament in Basel. Murray was given a wild card for the event while Henman is the sixth seed as well as a two times former champion. The match is Murray’s [...]
End of the road for Cendant October 25, 2005 Cendant is to split into four separate companies, it revealed yesterday, as it also reported a slowdown in some of its leisure travel businesses. The American owner of Avis, the car rental company, Ramada hotels, and ebookers, wants to split into four listed companies after seeing its shares decline 9 per cent this year. Cendant [...]
Profits soar at Schering October 25, 2005 German drug company Schering has seen its quarterly profits soar by 29 per cent thanks to a cost-cutting programme and better than expected sales of its new birth control pill Yasmin. The company has increased its end of year profit forecast; shares rose by nearly 3 per cent on the news in pre-market trading. Profit [...]
Why women really mean business October 24, 2005 So, Robbie Williams thinks that experiencing the female orgasm will give him a better understanding of what it’s like to be a woman. Oh, if only it were that simple. To begin to understand what makes a woman tick, he’d be well-advised to get inside our heads first. And if, like us, you’re a woman [...]
The art of business October 24, 2005 With corporate curators taking more risks in their purchasing policy, staff around the City are being exposed to more cutting edge art than ever before. An excitable group of schoolboys snakes along one of the corridors of Deutsche Bank’s Winchester House offices in the heart of the City. They bob around a lithograph of a [...]
House price drop cannot be hidden October 24, 2005 Annual house price inflation was 1.8 per cent according to the latest analysis by the Nationwide Building Society. That is the lowest figure since May 1996, but it is still an exaggeration. Prices rose by 1.8 per cent in the six months to last April — but they have not risen at all in the [...]
Crash Course? October 24, 2005 On the anniversary of the 1929 stock market collapse, Laurie Laird asks if we are in danger of repeating that disaster. What year is it? It’s October, and the autumn fashion shows have featured falling hemlines and rising waistbands — the wasp waist is back. On the economics front, the world’s biggest economy has been [...]
