Analyst Views: What do you make of Blinkx’s blog response? March 31, 2014 PAUL RICHARDS | NUMIS Blinkx has confirmed and verified that the blog contains materially misleading data… We view [Blinkx’s trading update] as conservative and believe growth will re-accelerate as clients are reassured and believe this will be matched by a rebound in the group’s shares over time. DAVID REYNOLDS | JEFFERIES [Blinkx’s blog rebuttal] extends [...]
Heathrow and Boris clash over airport’s future March 31, 2014 HEATHROW has been drawn into a political dogfight over its role as a magnet for business, with the Mayor of London claiming a new town and technology hub on the site of the airport could lift the city’s economy. Meanwhile, Heathrow has argued that firms based nearby would downsize rather than adapt to a new [...]
IMF: Banks still rely on $600bn of state support March 31, 2014 THE WORLD’S giant banks are still too big to fail and are being propped up by governments to the tune of $600bn (£360bn), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday. That support come in the form of an implicit guarantee – markets expect governments to bail them out if they go bust, keeping their borrowing costs [...]
Travelex buys Turkish outfit March 31, 2014 FOREIGN exchange firm Travelex yesterday moved into Turkey with the acquisition of Turkish company Arti Doviz. It is the first time a foreign money exchange operator has entered the Turkish market. The deal will give Travelex, which is exploring plans for a listing on the London Stock Exchange, five stores at Ataturk International Airport in [...]
Burford starts to reap rewards as earnings rise higher again March 31, 2014 BURFORD Capital, the litigation finance firm chaired by former Barclays chair Sir Peter Middleton, yesterday said surging investment returns helped deliver better profits last year. The group, which primarily provides financial funding for litigation, said pre-tax profits rose 25 per cent for the year ending December 2013 to $42.5m. “We’ve hit a point in our [...]
Bottom Line: Royal Mail proves markets trump politics March 31, 2014 ON ITS first day as a listed company in February, shares in AO.com rose by 33 per cent. Three weeks later, Poundland followed suit; jumping 23 per cent on its debut and making millionaires of several of its senior managers. Other players in London’s recent initial public offering (IPO) boom haven’t fared so well; Just [...]
Shock February drop in lending for mortgages March 31, 2014 MORTGAGE lending dipped during February, according to surprising official figures from the Bank of Lending, marking the first monthly drop in a year. There were 70,309 mortgages approved by financial institutions in February, down by more than 6,000 from January’s figure, which was the highest in six years, going back to the onset of the [...]
Domestic buyers return to prime central London property market March 31, 2014 UK BUYERS accounted for almost half of property sales in London’s prime postcodes last year as investors regained their confidence that Britain’s economy is on the move. The boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea and Westminster recorded 49 per cent of property sales to domestic buyers in 2013, according to data out yesterday from estate agents [...]
Housebuilder McCarthy & Stone to splash £1.5bn as sales jump March 31, 2014 RETIREMENT home-builder McCarthy & Stone is planning a £1.5bn investment splurge on land after revealing a sharp increase in its revenues. The company said yesterday that sales were up 49 per cent to £149.7m in the year to 28 February, with net profit swinging back into the black. Net profit came in at £11.5m, reversing [...]
Network Rail totting up cost of flood defence March 31, 2014 NETWORK Rail has set out its £38bn upgrade plans for the next five years, though new boss Mark Carne underlined the difficulty of cutting running costs while keeping Britain’s railways in shape. Carne and his team are totting up how much more money they will need to protect the railways against the weather, following the [...]
