Brand Index: Consumer spending pressures also in play on the high street November 5, 2013 MARKS & Spencer’s ninth consecutive quarter of falling sales is set to put further pressure on CEO Marc Bolland, who has argued that recent improvements to the fashion business have been “well-received” by customers, but that high-street spending has yet to catch up with the wider economic recovery. So is this an economy problem, or [...]
G4S chief plans to sell off units and cut UK jobs November 5, 2013 FTSE 100-listed security company G4S yesterday outlined plans to restructure the business, as it battles to turn around its fortunes and restore its damaged reputation. Chief executive Ashley Almanza said he will sell or restructure 35 weaker performing units and plans to cut up to 400 UK jobs over the next 18 months. It is [...]
Analyst Views: What did you make of G4S’s trading update and turnaround plan? November 5, 2013 MIKE ALLEN | PANMURE GORDONThere is a bit of downward pressure on the numbers and I think the US market will continue to be challenging into 2014 because of the shutdown. The firm said it will now use a single pool of capital to appraise all opportunities, which I think is a good idea. We’ll be [...]
Premier Foods seeks out new bread investor November 5, 2013 PREMIER Foods has hired advisers to review options for its troubled bread division, including a possible sale. The owner of Hovis and Mother’s Pride bread has asked financial advisory firm Ondra Partners to explore options including attracting a new investor, a source confirmed last night. Premier Foods’ bread business, which also produces own-label ranges for [...]
Profits rise at ICE as it awaits its takeover of exchange rival NYSE November 5, 2013 ATLANTA-BASED InterContinental Exchange (ICE) said yesterday it expects to close its takeover of NYSE Euronext within days, and reported an eight per cent rise in third-quarter profit, helped by lower taxes and new clearing revenues. The derivatives exchange and clearing house operator said in December it would buy the owner of the New York Stock [...]
OFT told loans firm Wonga to change its ways November 5, 2013 PAYDAY lenders were in the spotlight yesterday as Wonga, Mr Lender and QuickQuid executives appeared in front of a parliamentary select committee to defend against criticism from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). Wonga’s head of regulatory and public affairs, Henry Raine, revealed that the company had been forced to make changes to its sales [...]
Retailers record half a year of declining prices in UK shops November 5, 2013 UK SHOP prices fell during October, dropping for the sixth straight month as retailers struggle to sell non-food items. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Nielsen’s shop price index fell by 0.5 per cent from the same period last year, after a shallower decline of 0.2 per cent in September. Despite a rise in food [...]
Online mogul’s social net worth November 5, 2013 MARK Zuckerberg, founder of internet giant Facebook, managed to both be the youngest billionaire, and the one that added the most to their fortune this year, according to Bloomberg Markets. Zuckerberg, who is still not quite 30 years old, doubled his fortune this year, up to $23.6bn (£14.71bn) from the beginning of January to the [...]
IMF’s man is coining it in Greece November 5, 2013 IT’S an interesting way to pay one’s debts. A protester in Greece was detained yesterday for throwing a fistful of coins at an International Monetary Fund representative as he walked into a meeting with the finance ministry in Athens. Poul Thomsen, part of the IMF’s delegation in Greece’s troika of creditors, managed to avoid the [...]
RSA’s weather warning gets a stormy reaction November 5, 2013 BRITAIN’S largest general insurer RSA warned yesterday that last week’s wind storms in northern Europe would hit profits, the first major insurer to say so, sending its shares tumbling. RSA said that damage from the St Jude storm in the UK and northern Europe as well as from floods in Canada this year, deemed that [...]
