Bottom Line: Beware of history repeating itself February 11, 2014 CAST your mind back to October 2008. As the financial crisis took hold, governments across the world unveiled multi-billion bank recapitalisation plans, while central banks simultaneously slashed interest rates to record lows and the FTSE plunged lower – falling a full 10 per cent in one single session. Over in Ukraine, meanwhile, the hryvnia was [...]
Cathedral Group sparks row on first day of Smithfield inquiry February 11, 2014 THE BATTLE over the future of Smithfield began in earnest yesterday as developer Henderson and opposition group Save gathered at the Guildhall for the first day of the public inquiry. The 12-day hearing started with a row over whether Save could bring new evidence from a rival developer Cathedral, which has done its own report [...]
Blackrock hikes stake in Blinkx February 11, 2014 INVESTMENT firm Blackrock has raised its stake in Blinkx, buying another 5.4m shares and raising its total stake to over 13 per cent, putting its weight behind the video firm. Blinkx’s share price rose 1.3 per cent to 119.5p, following a 30 per cent drop on 30 January when a Harvard professor published a blog [...]
Mitie to run immigration centres February 11, 2014 Outsourcing group Mitie will soon be the biggest immigration centre operator in the private sector, after winning the right to run two centres near Heathrow. The Home Office contract, worth £180m over eight years, will make Mitie responsible for around 900 people detained at Colnbrook and Harmondsworth. The sites were previously managed by Serco and [...]
Allianz buys stake in Bayern Munich February 11, 2014 German insurer Allianz said last night that it has taken an 8.33 per cent stake in Bayern Munich football club for €110m (£91.2m). The deal was struck in part to ensure that the Allianz brand name will continue to appear on the club’s Munich stadium until 2041, Allianz said. Allianz added that it obtained the [...]
New Look rules out plans to float February 11, 2014 NEW LOOK chief executive Anders Kristianson has said the group is in no hurry to join the latest flurry of stock market listings, after the fashion retailer reported a five per cent jump in third quarter sales. Kristianson said the company “did not have any imminent plans” and needed to strengthen its position overseas and [...]
History repeating? The Walkie Scorchie’s Plan B February 11, 2014 SHIELD your eyes, the curtain has been pulled back on the plans for the Walkie Scorchie and its indiscriminate burn beams. Land Securities has been working with Rafael Vinoly’s architecture firm to create a solution to stop the building’s curved surface from reflecting super-strong beams of sunlight onto the road below (as happened in September, [...]
A Bond new club for City’s singles February 11, 2014 WHAT do hedge funds, Sir Roger Moore and a Danish-Swedish socialite have in common? They’re all related in some way to a new social club for singles called Ochun. The club has been founded by Christina Knudsen (the socialite in question and incidentally the step-daughter of Sir Roger Moore) and former Arbiter hedge funder Richard Steele. [...]
Low cost gyms merge to create £300m empire February 11, 2014 THE PRIVATE equity owners of two fast-growing budget gym chains announced plans yesterday to join forces, creating a £300m fitness empire that would rival the UK’s more established players. Pure Gym is to merge with rival low-cost operator the Gym Group, in a deal that will see the new company owning more than 100 gyms [...]
Brand Index: What liking Monty Python says about your economic view February 11, 2014 USING the huge amount of data we at YouGov have been collecting for years, we can create detailed profiles of various groups in society. Here, I will paint a picture of two distinct groups in Britain today: those who expect to be better off in the near future and those who – despite the economic [...]
