Shopping guru slams food chains June 1, 2010 TV shopping guru Mary Portas has blamed supermarkets for “killing” Britain’s smaller shops. The star of BBC’ s Mary Queen Of Shops, raised the alarm over what she describes as the “seemingly unstoppable march” of the superstores. Writing in the Radio Times, Portas said she believed communities were suffering for the sake of convenience. She [...]
Whitbread quashes City rumours of plans to issue equity in business June 1, 2010 PREMIER Inn and Costa Coffee conglomerate Whitbread yesterday insisted that it has no plans for a rights issue to boost its finances. Whitbread, which was responding to City speculation, said it was looking at “diversifying the sources and tenure of its debt” and could issue new debt in the next 12 months. Whitbread, which also [...]
Northern Foods relies on Goodfella’s June 1, 2010 NORTHERN Foods has said it hopes the relaunch of Goodfella’s pizzas will help it to cope with tough trading conditions as it yesterday repor?ted flat annual profits. Chief executive Stefan Barden said the firm aimed to replicate the success it achieved with the relaunch of its Fox’s biscuits, which lifted it to number two in [...]
NAB gets time to finalise its Axa Asia deal June 1, 2010 INSURER AXA has given National Australia Bank (NAB) six more weeks to win regulatory approval for its takeover bid for insurer and wealth manager AXA Asia Pacific Holdings (APH). All three firms are locked in an exclusivity agreement until 15 July while NAB continues talks with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which blocked [...]
Exploring Britain’s attitudes towards alcohol June 1, 2010 AS the new government proposes to tackle Britain’s binge-drinking culture, YouGov has looked in detail at the attitudes of those who drink alcohol, as a part of a YouGov SixthSense sector report. Although 95 per cent of respondents believe that a drink from “time to time” does not hurt, almost half (44 per cent) of [...]
International accounts rules to be delayed June 1, 2010 THE head of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which sets US accounting rules, said yesterday he does not expect FASB to meet a 30 June, 2011 deadline for convergence with international accounting rules, requested by the G20 group of industrial and emerging countries. The Norwalk, Connecticut-based FASB and the London-based International Accounting Standards Board [...]
GERMAN AID FOR OPEL IN DOUBT June 1, 2010 GENERAL Motors received a setback yesterday in its effort to secure €1.1bn (£0.92bn) in German aid for its money-losing Opel unit after a government panel declined to endorse the request. Germany said that its technical experts were “very critical” of the US carmaker’s request for loan guarantees. GM and Opel want Germany and four other [...]
Sweden’s top lenders are in good sha pe June 1, 2010 SWEDEN’S central bank slashed its forecast yesterday for loan losses for its four major financial groups and said the country’s lenders were in a strong position to weather uncertain market conditions. The Riksbank central bank said it expected loan losses at the four major banks – Nordea, SEB, Handelsbanken and Swedbank – to reach SEK61bn [...]
Alan Ruddock, writer, editor, dies suddenly June 1, 2010 ALAN Ruddock, one of City A.M’s columnists at the time of the paper’s launch, died suddenly at the weekend. His death came shortly after he played cricket in his native Ireland. Ruddock, 49, held a number of executive roles in the UK press, including editor of the Scotsman at the time of devolution. He was [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS June 1, 2010 INFORMA JP Morgan Cazenove reiterates its “overweight” rating on Informa after assessing its margin upside potential. JP Morgan said the company has proved itself good at removing costs to offset revenue shortfall, the stock offers a higher equity free cash flow yield than the business-to-business and ?professional publishing sub-sectors and the stock may see technical [...]
