Real men only apply July 6, 2010 For a while, a few years back, it looked like the US trend for vast trucks and pickups was going to catch on here. Stateside rappers wearing signet rings the size of dinner plates applied the same “bigger is better” approach to all of their purchases, and cars like the mahoosive Hummer were suddenly very [...]
OUT OF OFFICE July 6, 2010 HABIT OF ART RETURNING After a sell-out run at the National, Alan Bennett’s amusing play about old age, the creative spirit and sexuality is returning to the Lyttelton from next week. National Theatre regulars Desmond Barrit and Malcolm Sinclair take over the roles of WH Auden and Benjamin Britten, towering figures of the arts staring [...]
Car sales jump 10.8 per cent July 6, 2010 UK new car sales rose 10.8 per cent in June compared with the same month last year, industry figures have shown. The rise came despite the end of the scrappage scheme. A total of 195,226 new cars were sold in June, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said. In the six months from [...]
Punch on track thanks to World Cup and sunshine July 6, 2010 BRITIAN’S biggest pubs firm Punch Tavern said it was on track to meet full-year expectations as trading was boosted by hot summer weather and the World Cup. The company, which has over 7,100 pubs, said trading during the World Cup had been brisk, helping sales at pubs open for more than a year grow in [...]
Persimmon sees house sales rise July 6, 2010 HOUSEBUILDER Persimmon said total house sales and completions rose in the first half, despite slipping in recent months on election and budget uncertainty. The company, the UK’s largest housebuilder by market value, said legal completions in the first half increased by 16 per cent to 4,657 homes year-on-year, with the average selling price rising by [...]
Ocado sets £1.2bn valuation for listing July 6, 2010 ONLINE grocer Ocado is aiming for a valuation of over £1bn in its planned initial public offering (IPO), despite turbulent markets and scepticism among some analysts and investors. The firm, which announced plans last month to raise £200m in a stock market listing, said on it would price its shares at between 200 pence and [...]
N Brown sales growth slows July 6, 2010 HOME shopping group N Brown posted a slowdown in underlying sales growth in its second quarter as its customers assessed the likely impact on their finances of the new coalition government’s policies. The firm, which targets older and larger customers, said its like-for-like sales increased 0.1 percent in the 18 weeks to July 3. That [...]
Back to 1926: Unions plan general strike July 5, 2010 THE prospect of the first general strike since 1926 reared its ugly head yesterday, after trade union leaders clubbed together to fight the toughest public spending cuts in a generation. Three unions – which represent train and bus drivers, prison officers, and civil servants – said they would support a general strike if the government [...]
Back-up fund for EU banks July 5, 2010 European Union countries that discover problem banks when they stress-test their lenders could turn to an existing EU state back-up scheme. EU economy commissioner Olli Rehn said that should any government exhaust national funds in helping a troubled lender, it could turn to “EU financial backstops.” “In order to use these European financial stability mechanisms [...]
Grim is the new Nice for the economy July 5, 2010 ECONOMISTS at Morgan Stanley have coined a great phrase to describe what we will be living through over the next few years: it will be Grim – Growth Really Is Mediocre. That is in stark contrast to the Nice years – the Non-Inflationary Consistent Expansion originally described by Mervyn King. It is also in stark [...]
