BlackBerry tells investors and customers they should not panic October 14, 2013 TROUBLED mobile phone maker BlackBerry yesterday published an open letter to stakeholders to assure them the company is stable. BlackBerry is considering selling itself after its latest smartphone models failed to turn around its fortunes. Weak profits led the group to announce another 4,500 job losses last month, and shares in the company are down [...]
Boris Johnson beats Osborne to charm China October 14, 2013 GEORGE Osborne and Boris Johnson yesterday conducted a joint question and answer session with Chinese students as the two politicians attempted to woo the country on competing trade missions. Osborne is today expected to offer a loosening of regulatory barriers for Chinese banks wanting to expand in London. Yesterday he said: “A great nation like [...]
City Index hires chairman as it rejigs managers October 14, 2013 CITY Index, the spread betting group two-thirds owned by Michael Spencer of Icap, is bringing in an executive chairman to try to improve its performance and to focus more on international expansion. The group is hiring Mark Preston, a banking industry specialist, who quit Lloyds Bank before its ill-fated merger with HBoS. Preston will work [...]
Argos’ MyTablet aims for mobile retail shoppers October 14, 2013 ARGOS has become the latest retailer to join the tablet market fray with the launch of its £99 MyTablet today. The release follows Tesco, which launched its own Hudl tablet on 30 September with a massive in-store advertising push. The new device is targeted at enabling customers to make further Argos purchases on the tablet, [...]
Bottom Line: This odyssey might just be a step too far October 14, 2013 DESPITE having been around since 1968, when Arthur C Clarke first envisioned “the newspad” in 2001: A Space Odyssey, tablets still feel pretty fresh. Apple’s sector-defining iPad may have landed in 2010, nine years late for Clarke, but it’s not taken long for everyone to want a piece of the action – from natural competitors Samsung [...]
Alliance Boots insists its tax arrangements are within law October 14, 2013 HEALTHCARE giant Alliance Boots today said that an attack on its tax arrangements is “extraordinary and disappointing”, insisting it complies fully and openly with local tax laws. A group of trade unions and anti-poverty charity War on Want have today issued a report claiming that Alliance Boots has avoided at least £1.1bn of tax since [...]
Economics prize given to asset price professors October 14, 2013 THE 2013 Nobel prize in economic sciences was awarded yesterday to three American economists for their roles in understanding asset prices. Professors Lars Peter Hansen and Eugene Fama of the University of Chicago, and professor Robert Shiller of Yale University, were awarded the prize for this year. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which makes decisions [...]
Labour wants to allow budget watchdog to analyse manifestos October 14, 2013 LABOUR will today table an amendment that would enable the government’s independent budget watchdog to scrutinise the spending plans of all major parties in the run up to the 2015 election. Shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who first proposed the idea at last month’s Labour conference, called on chancellor George Osborne to help “ensure a more informed [...]
Hannam adds a heavyweight to his boutique October 14, 2013 ONE of the City’s best-known dealmakers joined with another yesterday as Tim Hoare announced he is to partner Ian Hannam at Strand Partners, where the two men will help create a leading banking advisory house for the natural resources sector. The two men join together with Hannam’s former JP Morgan colleague Neil Passmore, who is chief [...]
Enrolment pushes up pension optimism October 14, 2013 EMPLOYEES who have been automatically enrolled in a workplace pension scheme have seen their confidence boosted in the past year, according to a report out today. The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) reveals that in the past 12 months, during which time 1.6m people have been enrolled automatically in an occupational pension scheme, confidence [...]
