Greece open to offers for state gas company DEPA February 29, 2012 Greece has invited bids for state-owned gas company DEPA, as it moves ahead with a privatisation programme targeted to raise 19 billion euros (£16bn) by 2015. According to an offer document published on Wednesday, the government is considering a “bundled” sale of DEPA, combining its wholesale, trading and gas supply business as well as its [...]
Lloyds gets the most complaints February 29, 2012 PART-NATIONALISED bank Lloyds received the most complaints among UK financial firms in the second-half of last year, data from the Financial Ombudsman showed yesterday. The Ombudsman said the various operations within Lloyds Banking Group – including the likes of Bank of Scotland and Halifax – got 20,310 complaints from July to December last year. Barclays [...]
Deutsche set for €2bn asset deal February 29, 2012 DEUTSCHE Bank has said it is talking exclusively to privately held US financial services firm Guggenheim Partners over the sale of a big chunk of its asset management businesses. Germany’s biggest lender declined to give financial details but it is expected to raise between €1.5bn (£1.27bn) and €2bn from the deal. The businesses up for [...]
Tesco keeps on losing share to cut price rivals February 29, 2012 LEADING supermarket Tesco failed to increase sales as quickly as its rivals in the last 12 weeks, data out yesterday showed, while leaked documents showed the Co-op is well behind its sales targets already this year. Tesco’s sales rose 2.5 per cent in the 12-week period ending 19 February, compared with the same period last [...]
Whitbread sees its hotel demand slow February 29, 2012 WHITBREAD has revealed a slowdown in fourth quarter sales at Premier Inn, the budget hotel chain, as consumers remained under pressure and demand for hotel rooms outside of the capital softened. The UK’s largest hotel and restaurant owner said like-for-like sales at Premier Inn fell 0.9 per cent in the 11 weeks to 16 February, [...]
Indian economic growth slowest for three years February 29, 2012 India’s economic growth slowed to its weakest annual pace in almost three years in the three months to December, as high interest rates and rising input costs constrained investment and manufacturing. Gross domestic product rose 6.1 per cent in October to December compared with a year earlier, a lower than expected increase, figures from the [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: WHAT DID YOU MAKE OF WHITBREAD’S RESULTS? February 29, 2012 JAMIE ROLLO | MORGAN STANLEY Whitbread has reported fourth quarter like-for-like sales growth of 1.8 per cent, in line with our expectations but with a slightly different mix…With a stronger performance at Costa balancing the slightly weaker performance at Premier Inn we do not expect to see changes to consensus for 2012. WYN ELLIS | [...]
Profits up for money website February 29, 2012 PRE-TAX profits more than doubled for MoneySupermarket in 2011 as the price comparison website continued to attract cash-strapped consumers, reaching 140m visitors last year. The FTSE 250 company grew revenues 22 per cent to £181m, pocketing £24.3m before tax compared to £11m last year. It was boosted by strong performances in its money and insurance [...]
Camera-maker Jessops’ chairman calls it a day February 29, 2012 DAVID Adams will step down from his position as chairman of camera-maker Jessops this week. Martyn Everett will replace Adams from 1 March, joining from Chorion, the media rights firm that is home to Noddy and the Mr Men. Jessops welcomed Everett’s “wealth of experience in change management and delivering stakeholder value” in a statement [...]
Taylor Wimpey restores dividend February 29, 2012 Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey said it had resumed paying a dividend as its tactic of focussing on margins rather than volume helped enable a swing back to profit. The company reported an underlying pretax profit of £90m in the 12 months to end-December, compared to a loss of 28 million pounds in 2010, on continuing operations [...]
