Unite rejects Olympics Tube bonus March 14, 2012 Unite the union yesterday rejected London Underground’s offer of an £850 Olympics bonus for its maintenance and management workers. Unite said the offer, which is still being considered by transport union RMT, had “strings attached [that] are totally unacceptable” including a requirement to work flexibly. Unite has also announced a ballot of London bus drivers [...]
SocialGo reduces its losses March 14, 2012 SocialGo has unveiled a software update which gives the social network builder a closer integration with Facebook and allows its users to create a better featured and bespoke version of a Facebook group. SocialGo, which raised £1.63m of capital from two share placings last year, reported revenues of £734,000. Its operating loss for the year [...]
Correction March 14, 2012 On Tuesday, City A.M. printed an article entitled “Gulf Keystone shares plunge”, which quoted a note from Seymour Pierce analysts that included an interview with chief executive Todd Kozel that it said took place last weekend. Seymour Pierce has since corrected the note to the effect that the quoted interview actually took place several years [...]
N + 1 PLUS ANOTHER ONE……… March 14, 2012 Life in the City’s financial advisory sector has been full of change lately, especially at the firms which tailor their expertise to the small to mid-cap corporates. There’s been a merging of Evolution and Investec; there’s a possible merger between Canaccord and Collins Stewart to come, with likely job cuts on the cards; there have [...]
JP MORGAN STARTS ITS MOVE March 14, 2012 There was much clattering of chairs and sideboards yesterday at JP Morgan’s Aldermanbury offices in the City of London as removal people began the shift eastwards to the US bank’s new London headquarters at the former Lehman building in Canary Wharf. JP Morgan started moving people last month and has already installed its name-plate at [...]
Marston’s up despite fears over Budget March 14, 2012 PUB operator Marston’s reported solid trading yesterday despite a tough period for the leisure sector and said it was looking ahead to a strong 2012. Like for like sales over the last 23 weeks were up 3.5 per cent on last year at the British brewer – which has 2,150 outlets across the country – [...]
Smiths Group warns of the impact from spending cuts March 14, 2012 BRITISH technology firm Smiths Group yesterday reported a slight increase in first-half pre-tax profit as higher sales to the oil and gas industry offset weakness at its detection business, which has been hit by government spending cuts. Smiths’ detection unit, which makes X-ray scanners used at airports and advanced explosion scanners, has been especially hit [...]
Zynga: second share offering March 14, 2012 ZYNGA is planning a secondary offering of $400m (£255m) in a bid to keep its current investors happy. The social gaming company, which listed for $10 a share in December, wants its main shareholders to agree to a longer “lock-up” period – usually six months – in which they can’t offload their shares. It could be [...]
Mecom rocked by low ad sales March 14, 2012 EUROPEAN publishing group Mecom reported a two per cent drop in revenues to €1.06bn in 2011 as advertising income fell seven per cent to €461.5m. Pre-tax losses were €33.4m – an improvement on 2010’s loss of €94.8m. Mecom also said it had acquired near total control of Wegener, its Dutch regional newspaper unit that accounts for [...]
Slump in UK hurts French Connection March 14, 2012 FRENCH CONNECTION said yesterday it was launching a review of its UK operations after a disappointing performance caused profits to slide by 32 per cent in 2011. The group, whose eponymous brand accounts for over 90 per cent of its revenue, reported pre-tax profits of £5m in the year to the end of January, in [...]
