M&A takeover prices rise again after buyers scramble for deals August 13, 2015 COMPANY takeover prices have edged up amid growing competition from buyers, figures out today show. The average multiple of a takeover – which tracks the link between the takeover price and the target company’s operating profits – rose to 10 times earnings for trade buyers this year, according to BDO. The figure is up on [...]
City Moves for 14 August 2015 | Who’s switching jobs August 13, 2015 Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking Thomas Sandberg has been appointed associate director in the bank’s relationship solutions team within its financial institutions business. He joins from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was vice president of the Nordic market solutions group. Sandberg has also previously held senior structured finance positions at RBS, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley [...]
Energy shares drop but Cisco helps market – New York Report August 13, 2015 US STOCKS finished flat yesterday as a drop in energy shares offset a rebound in retail sales and stronger-than-expected Cisco results. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 5.74 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 17,408.25, the S&P 500 lost 2.66 points, or 0.13 per cent, to 2,083.39 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 10.83 points, or [...]
Why the disadvantaged have been education reform’s biggest winners August 13, 2015 THE SCHOOL reforms in England since 2010 have been underpinned by the rationale that a good education is emancipating and liberating; that it allows access to a world of opportunities and interests where an individual’s destiny is in their own hands. In order to achieve that goal, the coalition and now the Conservatives have undertaken [...]
Unemployment has risen – but we need to look at the bigger labour market picture August 13, 2015 THE headlines this week were about a rise in UK unemployment –up 25,000 in the past three months. The main weakness was in part-time employment, which fell by nearly 100,000. Full-time employment rose, albeit more slowly than in previous quarters. The number of full-time employees is more than 400,000 (2.2 per cent) up on a [...]
A-Level results: A major milestone for many – but not for much longer August 13, 2015 STUDENTS across the UK opened their A-Level results yesterday and, for most, the three or four letters in that envelope will determine where they study next or which employer they go on to work for. A-Level results day has been a major milestone in many peoples’ lives since the 1950s. But if other organisations follow [...]
As China’s yuan devaluation shocks markets, should the world fear a global currency war? August 13, 2015 Gabriel Stein is director of asset management services at Oxford Economics, says Yes Not because China wants to start one, but because the decision is not China’s. Ostensibly, the changes implemented over the past three days aim to give market forces greater influence over the currency. That is good news. But by announcing, on three [...]
Film review: Trainwreck August 13, 2015 Cert 15 Four Stars It would be easy to dismiss Trainwreck as another adult comedy about a party animal who needs to grow up, but writer-star Amy Schumer is no Vince Vaughn. Her character’s foul mouthed partying belies an underlying fragility, and her fraught negotiation of life-altering events – most notably, falling for a sensible [...]
Film review: Mistress America August 13, 2015 Cert 15 Three Stars “Don’t let me hear you say life’s taking you nowhere,” croons David Bowie in Golden Years, the song that bookends Noah Baumbach’s last film While We’re Young. We could well take this as a maxim aimed at Baumbach’s characters – at least in his cautiously optimistic later films, which all follow [...]
Opera review: Carmen August 13, 2015 Soho Theatre Four Stars This pioneering OperaUpClose production of Carmen is raw and unpolished, and that’s why it works. The DIY set, inventive costume design and earthy, enthusiastic performances conspire to revivify this staple of the operatic repertoire. Carmen is the tale of a sexually liberated woman killed by a culture of machismo. OperaUpClose has [...]
