Ryanair makes up with AmEx September 25, 2013 Ryanair has made amends with American Express, yesterday announcing it will start accepting payments more than a decade after banning the cards for “excessive charges”. The budget airline said the change of heart is part of its drive to attract more business passengers, which has already seen the carrier introduce some reserved seats. Ryanair also [...]
Homebase plans 15 updated stores September 25, 2013 Homebase, Britain’s second-biggest home improvement retailer, said yesterday it is seeing evidence of success from its costly store refit programme and aims to expand it to 15 of its outlets by year end. The company, owned by Home Retail Group, aims to stand out in a crowded market with a refurbishment programme costing £1m per [...]
CentralNic sees earnings double September 25, 2013 London-based CentralNic yesterday reported profits of £636,000, a jump of nearly 100 per cent, in the six months to 30 June. The internet registry service also revealed revenues had risen to £1.7m during the same period. CentralNic went public last month on London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim). CentralNic chair John Swingewood said increased demand for [...]
Best of the Brokers for 26 September 2013 September 25, 2013 GREENCORE Numis has given food company Greencore an “add” recommendation and lifted its target price to 153p ahead of its 26 November full year report. The analyst said plus points include “the absence of the horse meat issue and possible improvement from UK cakes & desserts.” TESCO Shares in Tesco fell 3.5 per cent yesterday, [...]
London Report: Slide in energy shares helps to drive FTSE down September 25, 2013 BRITAIN’S top shares fell yesterday, led down by Carnival after a profit warning triggered downgrades, while Centrica and SSE fell after the opposition Labour Party talked of an energy price freeze. Carnival slid 6.7 per cent to 2,098.26 pence, the FTSE 100’s top faller for the second session in a row, after Tuesday’s warning of [...]
New York Report: US stocks slide for fifth day on jitters over Fed September 25, 2013 US stocks fell yesterday and the S&P 500 put in a fifth day of losses, its worst losing streak since the end of 2012, on jitters funding for the federal government would run out and after a drop in shares of the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores. Investors worried about two looming Washington deadlines: action [...]
We can bring down UK energy costs without Miliband’s populist price fix September 25, 2013 WELL, no one can say we don’t know what Ed Miliband stands for any more. Whacking business with higher taxes, strangling them with regulation, expropriating land from owners who don’t develop, and reversing benefit cuts. The list of Wonga policies – superficially attractive in the short term, punitively expensive in the long term – was [...]
Lessons from Italy: What happens when businesses are forced to move abroad September 25, 2013 THE 42 employees of Firem, an Italian heating systems maker, returned from their August holidays to find the plant where they worked had relocated to Poland. Firem is not the only recent Italian escape act. Italy’s entrepreneurs, facing the second-to-worst business climate in the developed word, on World Bank figures, are leaving. And union power [...]
Freedom and liberty: The dangerous words our politicians ignore September 25, 2013 TWO words have dropped from the political lexicon. In fact, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband appear to find them dangerous. For in their conference speeches, these words weren’t mentioned at all (bar a passing reference from Clegg). Yet the same words were central to many of the great political speeches, [...]
Letters to the Editor – 26/09 – Energy price fix, Inflation target, Best of Twitter September 25, 2013 Energy price fix [Re: Miliband’s lurch to left is a recipe for disaster, yesterday] Labour claims that it wishes to promote a more competitive energy industry by breaking up the largest firms. Of course the irony is that the plan to freeze energy prices will likely result in a far less competitive market. Centrica has [...]
