Luxury residential developers to queue for Dutch Embassy sell-off May 27, 2014 THE DUTCH embassy has been put on the market, with the Kensington mansion block expected to fetch bids of over £150m. The 75,000 square feet property at 38 Hyde Park Gate has been put up for sale ahead of the Dutch embassy’s move to Nine Elms near Vauxhall, in 2018. It is the latest in [...]
Atos makes IT tie-up with Bull May 27, 2014 French IT group Atos is to buy Bull in a deal worth €620m (£502.2m) to create the biggest Europe-based cloud computing company and a major player in cybersecurity. The companies said the combined company would be second only to Amazon in global cloud computing revenues. Atos has offered €4.90 per share for Bull, or 30 [...]
Snoozebox checks into new rooms May 27, 2014 Snoozebox has hired a company that makes everything from broadcasting vans to mobile operating theatres to build a new version of its portable hotel rooms. The pop-up hotel provider said A Smith Gt Bentley (ASGB) has begun producing a better-value version of its portacabin that will be more flexible and easier to transport from one [...]
Repsol plans special dividend May 27, 2014 Spanish oil and gas giant Repsol said yesterday that it is asking its board of directors to approve a €1 per share special dividend, spending €1.3bn of funds raised from its recent withdrawal from Argentina. Repsol has raised more than $6bn in recent weeks after selling Argentine bonds received in compensation for the country’s seizure [...]
City Moves for 27 May 2014 | Who’s switching jobs May 27, 2014 Strategy& London Strategy&, the management consulting firm and part of PwC, has announced the appointment of James Walker as a partner for leading demand analytics in Europe. He has over 25 years’ analytics experience in marketing consulting, technology, and big data analytics. Walker was most recently at Prophet, where he created its data and analytics [...]
Best of the Brokers for 27 May 2014 May 27, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com TESCO Deutsche Bank has maintained its “buy” recommendation and target price of 342p for the supermarket chain, ahead of a first-quarter trading update on 4 June. The broker forecasts UK sales to deteriorate but expects Europe to continue the improved trend seen in [...]
London Report: Help To Buy under the microscope as new data released May 27, 2014 HELP To Buy will be under the microscope again this week when the Treasury publishes data showing the impact of the second part of the controversial scheme to aid borrowers. Following fast-growing criticism that the mortgage guarantee element is fuelling a housing bubble, analysts will be keen to dissect the government’s figures on Thursday. More [...]
European Report: Euro poll relief boosts shares May 27, 2014 EUROPEAN equities ended higher in thin trading yesterday, with Italian shares outperforming the regional market after voters endorsed Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s centre-left Democratic Party’s reforms in European elections. Results from around the 28-nation bloc showed pro-European centre-left and centre-right parties will keep control of around 70 per cent of the 751-seat EU legislature, but [...]
Our fragmented future: Why we’re now in an age of coalition politics May 27, 2014 THE PHRASE “no overall control” is likely to become the norm for British politics, certainly at the national level. The results of the recent local and European elections make clear that the electorate has no appetite for a strong Conservative direction, nor a Labour one. In spite of a concerted effort by the big guns [...]
Ukip is not a creation of the media – it is a reflection of voter disaffection May 27, 2014 WITH Ukip’s victory in the EU elections and a strong performance in council elections across the country, Westminster’s traditional parties are searching for explanations of Nigel Farage and his party’s success. Many, despite evidence to the contrary, have until now laboured under the misapprehension that Ukip’s support is purely “dividing the right” and the broad [...]
