Bottom Line: A global web player that is best of British September 19, 2013 ANYONE who said there was no space in the internet retail revolution for British business may have to start eating their words. On the heels of Ocado’s return to form thanks to a licensing deal with Morrisons comes this startling set of numbers from Asos. They confirm the online fashion retailer’s extraordinary achievement. In little [...]
Asos on trend with stellar set of sales figures September 19, 2013 ONLINE fashion retailer Asos saw its share price soar to a record high of nearly £55 yesterday after stunning the city with a stellar set of quarterly sales figures. The clothing site, which sells clothes to the lucrative 18 to 24 year old fashion market, said sales rose by almost 50 per cent across June, [...]
New banking standards body to be set up by former CBI director September 19, 2013 RICHARD Lambert, former director general of the Confederation of British Industry, was appointed by Britain’s biggest banks to set up a new independent banking standards body yesterday. The body will be independent from the banking industry. The move follows a recommendation in June by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, a group tasked with making [...]
Inside Track: Deal captain helps steer UKFI to fine result in share sale September 19, 2013 ADVISERS to UKFI’s £3.3bn sale of shares in Lloyds Banking Group faced an interesting conundrum earlier this week when the offer for sale of shares was covered nearly three times. The joint bookrunners from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and UBS were asked to consider whether either the size of the deal should be enlarged [...]
Watchdog sinks its teeth into pension funds September 19, 2013 THE UK’S trading watchdog yesterday laid the ground for a root and branch overhaul of workplace pensions after a study said that the current system is ripping off some savers. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT), which aims to protect consumers, said pensions were too complicated for many people to understand and employers running pension [...]
Cabinet Office and Treasury in firing line for being a soft touch September 19, 2013 THE CABINET Office and Treasury are too weak willed to exert control over government department spending, an influential parliamentary committee says today. Both offices, which hold the purse strings for government spending, have been criticised by the committee of public accounts for being “half-hearted” and failing to drive a decent bargain for taxpayers. “Tougher leadership [...]
City Airport submits £200m upgrade plan September 19, 2013 LONDON City Airport has submitted plans to create space for almost double the number of flights it can handle by 2023, as part of a £200m expansion project. City Airport, which won clearance to lift its flight numbers from 70,000 to 120,000 a year back in 2009, has asked Newham Council for permission to build [...]
Train firms set single fare cap September 19, 2013 TRAIN operators have agreed to a cap on the maximum fares they can charge passengers – but the ceiling has been set by the government at £250 for a single fare, or £500 return. Companies have also signed up to a code of practice that governs passengers that are caught without the correct ticket. Rail [...]
BP part of new Azerbaijan gas supply contract September 19, 2013 OIL MAJORS including BP and Statoil are part of a consortium that yesterday unveiled a new multi-billion pound sales agreement that would bring gas directly from Azerbaijan to Europe for the first time. Just over 10bn cubic metres a year of gas will be produced from the Shah Deniz field in Azerbaijan each year, in [...]
ING maps out insurance float September 19, 2013 DUTCH finance company ING came to London yesterday to spell out plans for an initial public offering of its insurance division next year. The firm, led by Jan Hommen, said it had accelerated the planned float of its newly minted subsidiary ING Insurance and said that it would now take place between March and December [...]
