Ryanair’s passenger numbers soar to a record high in August September 3, 2014 OUTSPOKEN Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary stayed resolutely quiet yesterday as the budget airline announced record monthly traffic. Passenger numbers grew four per cent, from 9m in August 2013 to 9.4m in the same month this year, pushing shares in the group 1.57 per cent higher yesterday to close at €7.39. Marketing manager Kenny Jacobs attributed [...]
Super skinny North London house goes on to auction with a £235,000 price tag September 3, 2014 It may seem like a home for the super-svelte, but you'll need a fat wallet if you want to buy this seven-foot wide home near Turnpike Lane station in North London – it's being put up for auction with a guide price of £235,000. Here's the skinny: the two-storey, two-bedroom home on St Anns Road [...]
WEF: UK is ninth most competitive economy – and second most “technologically ready”? September 3, 2014 The UK is now the ninth-most competitive economy in the world, figures published this morning showed – and the second-most competitive when it comes to "technological readiness". Blighty rose one place from last year in the rankings, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), while Switzerland came top of the list and Finland (fourth) and [...]
Ryanair share price rises as passenger numbers soar to a record high September 3, 2014 Outspoken Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary stayed resolutely quiet this morning as the budget airline announced record monthly traffic. Passenger numbers grew four per cent, from 9 million in August 2013 to 9.4 million in the same month this year, pushing shares up 1.35 per cent in early trading. Marketing manager Kenny Jacobs put the rise [...]
FTSE at its highest in 14 years as Ukraine agrees “permanent ceasefire” with Russia September 3, 2014 Markets reacted with relief this morning after Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko tweeted that the country had agreed a "permanent ceasefire" with Russia. The FTSE 100 rose 1 per cent to 6,897 – its highest in 14 years – while the euro jumped 0.12 per cent, to 1.31 dollars. Investors also piled back into Russian equities, [...]
Halliburton finally settles Gulf of Mexico lawsuits September 2, 2014 For those living in New Orleans and the cities around it, the six months between the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico well and it being declared officially "sealed" may have seemed like an age – but that was nothing compared to the length of the ensuing legal wrangles. Now [...]
More mining M&A on the cards? Anglo American share price rises as boss says “come and get us” September 2, 2014 Shares in Anglo American, the world's largest platinum miner, jumped 2.6 per cent this afternoon after its chief executive said the company is open to takeover offers. In an interview, Mark Cutifani said his job is "to create value" – adding that "if somebody sees value, then there's a conversation to be had". I'm not [...]
Date for the diary: George Osborne reveals when he will make his Autumn Statement September 2, 2014 George Osborne today announced he will deliver his Autumn Statement on December 3. Since Osborne took the helm at the Treasury, the Autumn Statment has slowly crept later in the year. While Gordon Brown, who delivered the first Autumn Statement in 1997, preferred to use his as a sort of summary of the state of [...]
Co-operative Group sells cash security arm Sunwin for £41.5m September 2, 2014 Alright, for a corporate deal it is hardly a princely sum – but the Co-operative Group has taken another step along the road to filling its £1.5bn capital hole by selling its Sunwin Services Group to Cardtronics for £41.5m The company, which transports and provides security for cash and has 1,500 workers and 14 regional [...]
Scuppered Pfizer-AstraZeneca deal leaves UK M&A at an all-time low September 2, 2014 Pfizer's thwarted acquisition of AstraZeneca may have kept proponents of British business happy – but it also helped push the number of mergers and acquisitions taking place in the UK to a historic low in the second quarter of 2014, official figures published this morning showed. The number of mergers and acquisitions involving UK companies [...]
