BT staff receive £160m payout August 9, 2012 THOUSANDS of staff at BT pocketed thousands of pounds in payouts yesterday as the telecoms operator’s three-year share scheme matured, leaving workers with an average of £8,000 each. Twenty thousand employees – a third of total staff – enrolled in the scheme when BT’s share price was half as high as yesterday’s £2.16. They took [...]
Stephenson Clarke in liquidation August 9, 2012 Britain’s oldest shipping firm, Stephenson Clarke Shipping, has gone into liquidation after nearly 300 years of trading, a casualty of the worsening global downturn. Liquidator Tait Walker was appointed on 3 August, the company said in a statement. “Whilst previous economic downturns have been weathered, the current market is one of the worst experienced for [...]
Payday lender fined and banned August 9, 2012 Payday lender MCO Capital was yesterday fined £544,404 and had its licence revoked by the Office of Fair Trading, after fraudsters impersonated customers seeking loans. The OFT said that MCO had failed to carry out adequate checks on applicants, allowing fraudsters to apply for millions of pounds worth of loans. The firm has had its [...]
Enterprise Inns toasts the Queen August 9, 2012 The Diamond Jubilee and Euro 2012 helped Enterprise Inns pull back from a sales slump, the firm said yesterday. However, the damp weather meant the group’s pubs did not recover as well as hoped. Enterprise posted a 1.2 per cent drop in like-for-like income in the 44 weeks to 4 August, compared to a slide [...]
HMV pins hope on returning to profit next year August 9, 2012 HMV yesterday said it was confident its focus on technology and the support of its suppliers and banks would help it return to profit this year despite posting steep losses for 2012. The embattled music entertainment chain confirmed a loss before tax and exceptional items of £16.2m, compared with the same amount of profit last [...]
Prospective first time buyers hit by the escalating cost of renting August 9, 2012 HOPEFUL first time home buyers are trapped in an increasingly expensive rental market, according to a series of separate studies released yesterday and today. The cost of renting a home shot up by 4.3 per cent in the year to May-July, with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) explaining that “many would-be buyers continue [...]
ANALYST VIEWS | DID HMV’S RESULTS SHOW ANY SIGNS OF IMPROVING PERFORMANCE? August 9, 2012 NICK BUBB INDEPENDENT ANALYST The long-awaited HMV finals are out…but there’s not a lot of new news…it clearly sees a big opportunity in tech and games to escape the downtrend in entertainment sales, but how long this upside lasts remains to be seen… KATE CALVERT SEYMOUR PIERCE We continue to see HMV as a value [...]
Ex CBI president quits carpet firm board after pay bust-up August 9, 2012 SIR Bryan Nicholson, former president of the CBI, resigned his directorship at carpet maker Victoria yesterday after he and two other non-executive directors lost the trust of the board by demanding a share of the proceeds of any sale of the firm. Victoria — which made the red carpet for last year’s Royal Wedding — [...]
Savills expects Europe property markets to remain subdued August 9, 2012 SAVILLS has said it expects European property markets to remain unsettled and very subdued in countries like Italy and Spain, as it posted a four per cent fall in first-half group profit before tax. The property consultancy said yesterday that underlying profit before tax fell to £19.7m in the six months to June, down from [...]
Retail industry lays out £500m growth plans August 9, 2012 THE GOVERNMENT yesterday announced some £500m of investment in Britain’s consumer industries, as some of the sector’s largest players laid out expansion plans in the UK and overseas. Speaking at the British Business Embassy’s Retail, Food and Drink summit in London yesterday, Boots chairman Stefano Pessina said the pharmacist will expand its store estate in [...]
