Carrefour puts stop to growth plan for Europe March 8, 2012 CARREFOUR, Europe’s top retailer, slashed its dividend and investment plans yesterday in anticipation of another tough year of shoppers cutting spending in austerity-hit southern Europe and in its core French market. The world’s second-biggest retailer behind Wal-Mart halved its dividend to preserve cash and put its plan to revive its European hypermarkets on hold. Carrefour, [...]
Profit growth for Cineworld on hit movies March 8, 2012 CINEWORLD has big plans for the year ahead after a string of blockbusters took pre-tax profits up 10 per cent to £33.4m in 2011, on 1.5 per cent increased revenues of £348m. Box office takings at the UK’s top cinema chain grew 2.7 per cent to £242.1m as 48.3m people (up 2.3 per cent) walked [...]
Guitar legend Fender files for US flotation March 8, 2012 FENDER Musical Instruments, whose guitars have been used by music legends Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Ronnie Wood and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, filed with regulators yesterday to raise up to $200m (£126.3m) in an initial public offering (IPO). Formed in the 1940s by Leo Fender, Fender was the first to mass-produce solid-body Spanish-style electric guitars. [...]
Olympics will lend boost to London hotels March 8, 2012 LONDON’S hotel sector is set to surge by 3.9 per cent this year as the Olympics and the Queen’s diamond jubilee help to bolster overseas and domestic tourist demand, according to Savills. The real estate adviser said the UK hotel sector attracted £1.5bn of investment in 2011, up 0.8 per cent from the previous year, [...]
Postbank weighs on Deutsche Post March 8, 2012 GERMAN postal and logistics group Deutsche Post said yesterday its profit halved in 2011 despite growth in its revenues. Operating profit grew 32.8 per cent to €2.4bn (£2bn), but net profit fell 54.2 per cent due to the fact that 2010 figures were inflated by the company’s sale of Postbank. Deustche Post sold its final [...]
Croydon mall to select bidder March 8, 2012 THE OWNERS of Croydon’s 1.2m square foot Whitgift shopping mall will next week announce their preferred bidder for the hotly contested redevelopment of the centre. Westfield, Grosvenor, Lend Lease and Hammerson are all vying for control of the mall, which is being revived as part of Croydon’s wider regeneration scheme. Westfield was initially seen as [...]
Squarestone raises £100m March 8, 2012 THE FOUNDERS of property investment company Squarestone have raised £100m of equity to develop mid-tier housing in central London. Robert Sloss and Tim Barlow have set up Hub Residential with the aim of providing funding to stalled development sites “in zones one and two of the tube line”. Sloss told City A.M. that 85 per [...]
SS&C moves to join fight for GlobeOp March 8, 2012 SHAREHOLDER hopes of a lucrative bidding war for GlobeOp jumped yesterday after US financial software provider SS&C Technologies suggested making a cash offer that would beat an agreed bid from private equity house TPG Capital. SS&C proposed making a 485p a share offer for the hedge fund administrator, whose independent directors have said they would [...]
Air France-KLM posts a loss on fuel price pain March 8, 2012 AIR FRANCE-KLM yesterday warned that a soaring fuel bill would hit profits this year after it swung to a loss in 2011 and scrapped its dividend. The Franco-Dutch airline posted an operating loss of €353m (£296m) for 2011, compared with a profit of €28m in the previous year, reflecting a €904m hike in its fuel [...]
Stella brewer predicts 2012 growth after strong quarter March 8, 2012 ANHEUSER-Busch InBev, the world’s largest brewer, beat expectations for profit growth in the fourth quarter, it said yesterday, and forecast that consumers in its two main markets – the US and Brazil – would be drinking more in 2012. The brewer of Budweiser, Stella Artois and Beck’s, reported a 12.2 per cent like-for-like rise in [...]
