Football Comment: Spurs role makes Kane ready for England – unlike other hopefuls February 8, 2015 TOTTENHAM striker Harry Kane fully deserves to win his first England cap next month but I have a problem with talk of the likes of Saido Berahino, Danny Ings and Charlie Austin gatecrashing the squad too. There is so much to like about Kane. As he showed with both goals in Saturday’s north London derby, [...]
Former Middlesex batsman fears World Cup could be Ireland’s last February 8, 2015 DISGRUNTLED Ireland batsman Ed Joyce has blasted plans by cricket bosses to reduce the number of teams permitted to play at future World Cups. A total of 14 teams will contest this year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, which begins on Saturday, although the International Cricket Council (ICC) have announced that number will [...]
McCoy enjoys Gold Cup win February 8, 2015 JOCKEY AP McCoy brushed off mixed emotions over his retirement announcement to land a first Irish Hennessy Gold Cup on board Carlingford Lough yesterday at Leopardstown. McCoy, who announced his intention to quit racing by the end of the season on Saturday, led the JP McManus-owned, John Kiely-trained 4-1 shot past Foxrock in a thrilling [...]
Yanis Varoufakis vs Wolfgang Schauble: Debt stand-off intensifies as Germany refuses to back down on Greek austerity programme February 5, 2015 A tense meeting of the Greek and German finance ministers laid bare a still-considerable schism between the two Eurozone states yesterday, with little or no progress made over how to resolve Greece’s debt crisis. Neither Yanis Varoufakis nor Wolfgang Schauble gave away any ground during an uncomfortable press conference, with Varoufakis strongly criticising the austerity [...]
US bid for UK’s Rexam makes a tin can titan February 5, 2015 SHAREHOLDERS in can-maker Rexam are in line for a major payout as the British firm is the subject of a takeover bid by US rival Ball Corporation. The £4.3bn cash and share offer would give a 36 per cent premium on the share price at the start of trading yesterday. If the pair did come [...]
Danes drop rates further below zero to chase euro February 5, 2015 DENMARK’S policy makers cut interest rates further into negative territory yesterday in an attempt to keep the krone pegged to the euro. The headline policy rate was cut from minus 0.5 per cent to minus 0.75 per cent. The krone-euro peg is a decades long arrangement where the Danish central bank sets interest rates and [...]
Who’s Bill? The question is, whose bill? – Editor’s Letter February 5, 2015 Who’s Bill? It is the question of the week, after Ed Balls’ senior moment on Newsnight. Balls struggled to recall the name of one supporter from the world of business, a moment that became symbolic of Labour’s new antagonistic stance toward the corporate sector. In Prime Minister’s Questions, an unrepentant Ed Miliband went on to [...]
Virgin Active IPO: Gym chain set for public listing in South Africa February 5, 2015 Gym chain Virgin Active has hired five banks in recent days to work on a public listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Standard Bank and UBS have been hired in recent days to work on the flotation which will value the company at around £1.5bn, according [...]
Driving progress in Spain February 5, 2015 US CAR-MAKER Ford announced yesterday it has completed the final stage of a €2.3bn (£1.7bn) expansion into Spain. The number of employees at the firm’s facility in Valencia, which is one of its largest assembly operations, has increased by around 3,000 since 2013.
Twitter suffers slowdown in user growth February 5, 2015 GROWTH in Twitter’s user numbers slowed in 2014, increasing by 20 per cent on 2013, to 288m, although the company’s financials took an impressive upward turn. Users jumped by 30 per cent between 2012 and 2013, and in 2012 the social media site reported user growth of 59 per cent. On a quarterly basis, the [...]
