Hook to miss England crunch February 23, 2012 RUGBY UNION: Fly-half James Hook is out of Wales’ Triple Crown bid against England on Saturday with chicken pox
Capita lifted by its strong order book February 23, 2012 A STRING of contract wins and a buoyant sales market are making outsourcing giant Capita confident of better growth prospects this year, after a six per cent profits rise for 2011 underpinned by acquisitions. Capita, which runs contact centres and customer services for customers such as BBC TV licensing, The Pension Services and the Criminal [...]
Go-Ahead banks on the Olympics for a boost over summer February 23, 2012 RAIL and bus group Go-Ahead is hoping the Olympics will boost its takings, after the firm posted a 13 per cent fall in half-year profits to £44m partly due to one-off costs. Go-Ahead said its focus on “more vibrant urban areas” is continuing to build passenger numbers, shown by its “robust” six per cent revenue [...]
London 2012 IMAGE OF THE WEEK February 23, 2012 TEST EVENT | DIVING Maria Betancourt of Venezuela competes in the women’s 10m platform preliminary event at the FINA Diving World Cup this week, the first time the Olympic Aquatics Centre has been used for a major sporting event. Photo: AFP PHOTO/Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Between now and the start of the Olympics, City A.M. is publishing [...]
CITY VIEWS: DO YOU THINK THE TAXPAYER WILL EVER PROFIT FROM ITS INVESTMENT IN RBS? February 23, 2012 CHRIS HUGHES | LEE BOLTON MONIER-WILLIAMS “The taxpayer has to profit from its investment in RBS. If it doesn’t, it will be politically unacceptable. The taxpayer will simply have to sit on the shares for as long as is necessary.” GREG BEEVORS | CLOSE BROTHERS “Eventually, I think it is possible the taxpayer will profit. [...]
Avocet’s takings triple in 2011 February 23, 2012 Avocet Mining said yesterday full-year profits more than tripled to $115.1m (£73.2m), boosted by gains from the sale of its South East Asian assets as the gold miner turns its focus exclusively to its West African projects. Excluding exceptional items the miner still posted a jump in 2011 profit to $56.4m from $33.4m a year [...]
Iberdrola issues profit warning February 23, 2012 Spain’s largest power firm Iberdrola warned on profits yesterday after a weak set of 2011 results that showed demand falling in core markets while consumption remained stifled in fragile economies. Iberdrola cut its 2010-2012 recurrent net profit target to under five per cent growth and its Ebitda growth target to about five per cent, compared [...]
Bodycote grows earnings 64pc February 23, 2012 British engineering firm Bodycote said yesterday it expects to gain market share this year on the back of strong sales in emerging markets and its aerospace and defence segment. The company, whose operations include heat treating jet engine turbine blades, said headline operating profit grew 64 per cent to £85.5m in 2011.
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 23, 2012 Deloitte Mike Sobers has been appointed as a partner to Deloitte’s enterprise risk service practice, a 1,000-strong team of professionals in the UK dedicated to helping businesses solve complex risk and control issues. Sobers joins Deloitte from Aviva, where he was the audit director with global responsibility for technology and project audit. During this time, [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 23, 2012 COVE Peel Hunt has downgraded the Mozambique-focused oil & gas explorer from “buy” to “hold” with a target price of 215p, saying that Shell’s offer of £992.4m earlier this week only values the company at 77.7 per cent of its implied value. The broker sees the offer as an early, competitive “knock-out” offer that may [...]
