AB Foods hit by Primark sales slowing September 13, 2010 SLOWING sales growth at budget fashion retailer Primark hit its parent company Associated British Foods’ shares yesterday. The 204-strong chain, which makes a third of group profit, has grown strongly through the downturn as its cheap chic clothes prove popular with cash-strapped shoppers, but now spending cuts, extra costs and tax rises are clouding the [...]
Higher VAT and costs will hurt profits September 13, 2010 IN recessions past, hard-up consumers have had to make do and mend. This time, they’re buying cheap and chucking away. Yesterday’s pre-close update from AB Foods showed that Primark, a leading purveyor of so-called “disposable fashion”, is going from strength to strength. Full-year like-for-like sales at the budget retailer are forecast to be six per [...]
Unions can’t agree on how to fight cuts to spending September 13, 2010 WHEN Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trade Unions Congress (TUC), addressed the organisation’s annual summit yesterday, he sounded more like Neil Kinnock than the heir of militant miners’ leader Arthur Scargill. “The government is pursuing a political agenda, so our response must be political,” Barber told delegates, as he sought to distance himself from [...]
CITY VIEWS: ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT ANOTHER WAVE OF STRIKES? September 13, 2010 JAMES DEVON | GEORGESON “I am not entirely worried about more strikes but I do expect more to happen as it seems to be a growing trend at the moment. But they seem to be causing less impact now as companies are coping. I beat the tube strike by taking the tube!” SONY DHOKIA | [...]
The airline boss with a hit list of 12 bid targets in his desk drawer September 13, 2010 It is clear that British Airways (BA) chief executive Willie Walsh always likes to keep his foot hard on the pedal. The Dublin-born airline boss is in the middle of a bitter 18-month dispute with his cabin crew, and only a few weeks ago received US and European regulatory clearance to pursue a transatlantic tie-up [...]
A&O senior management make £14.2m September 13, 2010 SENIOR ANAGEMENT at legal giant Allen & Overy (A&O) collectively took home £4m more last year, according to the firm’s financial statements. In the year ending 30 April 2010, management, including senior partner David Morley and managing partner Wim Dejonghe, made £14.2m last year, marking a rise from 2009 when that figure came in at [...]
Ex-IBM exec sentenced to prison term September 13, 2010 ROBERT Moffat, a former IBM senior executive whose extra-marital affair with a trader ensnared him in the Galleon hedge fund insider trading probe, was sentenced yesterday to six months in prison and a $50,000 (£32,410) fine. Moffat pleaded guilty in March to securities fraud and conspiracy in connection with tips he passed on about IBM’s [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS September 13, 2010 THORNTONS FinnCap reiterates its “sell” rating on Thorntons saying its recent results marked the latest in a disappointing run for the chocolate firm. It believes long term success depends on the business successfully rebalancing the business away from its retail stores towards other commercial sales. It adds this strategy is unproven. DE LA RUE Evolution [...]
Reinsurance firms face up to price pain September 13, 2010 REINSURERS are trying to stay confident about pricing prospects for 2011 in the face of a chorus of industry observers predicting price and earnings pain. At their annual Mediterranean meeting, the world’s biggest reinsurance players have once again vowed to maintain discipline in setting prices on the contracts for risk cover they provide to insurers, [...]
Santander’s Irish deal eyed by Poles September 13, 2010 Polish regulator KNF is to probe Spanish group Banco Santander’s deal to buy Zachodni WBK, the Polish arm of Allied Irish Banks, to see if confidential information was exchanged. Allied Irish Banks said suggestions of any irregularity were unfounded while Ireland’s finance minister, Brian Lenihan, a minority shareholder in the Irish lender after a state [...]
