Brand Index: British Airways flying high as it extends lead over Virgin August 20, 2013 LAST summer I looked at perception of airlines and noted that British Airways, after years of being hit by a series of crises, had managed a steady period of improvement in its consumer perception scores, once again managing to overtake Virgin as Britain’s favourite airline. A year on, and in the heat of the holiday [...]
CRH cuts full-year outlook after bad weather slows construction August 20, 2013 BUILDING materials group CRH has cut its full-year earnings outlook after results showed a sharp fall in profits since the start of the year. With first-half earnings down 24 per cent at €397m (£340m), the result was lower than the average analyst’s estimate of €410m, but in line with the company’s forecast in May. The [...]
City Moves for 21 August 2013 | Who’s switching jobs August 20, 2013 DUAL The underwriting arm of Hyperion Insurance Group has announced the appointment of Damian Crowe as a senior underwriter in its financial institutions division. Crowe was most recently at Chartis UK, where he was a senior underwriter in its financial lines division. Prior to that, he was a broker at FirstCity Partnership. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher [...]
Best of the Brokers for 21 August 2013 August 20, 2013 ITV Morgan Stanley raises its target price from 175p to 185p and keeps its “overweight” rating for the broadcaster. The broker sees the outlook for advertising as “more positive than it has been for the last three to four years”. RESTAURANT GROUP Numis Securities reiterates its “reduce” rating for the Restaurant Group and price target [...]
London Report: Weak earnings reports fuel drop in FTSE shares August 20, 2013 BRITAIN’S top share index edged lower yesterday as gloomy earnings reports fuelled profit-taking on some basic material and energy stocks and investors cut positions in expectation of less US monetary stimulus. Shares in miners BHP Billiton and Glencore Xstrata fell 1.7 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively as the former announced a lower-than-expected profit [...]
New York Report: Wall Street rebounds as strong figures boost retailers’ stocks August 20, 2013 THE S&P 500 bounced yesterday to end a four-day losing skid, as earnings from Best Buy and TJX Cos helped buoy retailers and consumer discretionary stocks. TJX Cos was the top boost to the S&P 500 after the owner of the discount T.J. Maxx and Marshalls chains reported better-than-expected quarterly sales, bucking a trend of [...]
How Britain can take advantage of a global growth in digital industries August 20, 2013 MOST new jobs are not created by established big businesses adding a few people here and there, or by the many smaller firms that are happy to stay small rather than take a risk and expand. Our future prosperity depends on a relatively small number of rapidly growing firms: high growth “gazelles”. So if we [...]
Against the Grain: Unemployment may fall much faster than the Bank of England expects August 20, 2013 THE VIEWS expressed by the new Bank of England governor Mark Carney on interest rates and unemployment remain a hot topic. Interest rates will not be raised until unemployment falls below 7 per cent, a process the Bank expects could take three years. The perception which many people have of unemployment is that it is [...]
We should be glad that foreign firms want to buy British companies August 20, 2013 THE ABSURDLY nationalist argument over whether foreigners should be allowed to own companies in Britain is raising its ugly head again. Vacuum technology firm Edwards has just been sold to Sweden’s Atlas Copco for £1bn, last month UK engineering giant Invensys was the subject of a £3.4bn takeover by France’s Schneider Electric, and Kentz has [...]
Letters to the editor – 21/08 – Sport competition, Best of Twitter August 20, 2013 Sport competition [Re: BT Sport has a mountain to climb in its bid to beat BSkyB, yesterday] David Hellier raises some interesting points about how consumers are buying converged TV, broadband and telephony packages. However, he misses two main points: BT is not looking to topple Sky Sports, and Sky TV customers can get BT Sport [...]
