GrandVision IPO: Global optician eyes €1.3bn for float January 26, 2015 HAL Trust, the owner of global optician GrandVision, is looking to raise as much as €1.3bn (£971m) through the company’s initial public offering on Euronext, it emerged yesterday. GrandVision is the world’s largest optical retailer and operates under a gamut of national brands, including Vision Express in the UK. It owns over 5,600 stores across [...]
Tinder and Betfair hook up with “Dave”, “Ed”, “Nick” and “Nige” profiles to lure “disengaged, tech-savvy voters” January 26, 2015 With now less than 100 days until the General Election, all eyes will be on the polls – but which survey should you trust? Well, if you’re not a political animal – and would rather base your vote on shared food choices and notches on the bedpost than actual policy decisions – Betfair may [...]
Blinkbox sold by Tesco at loss January 26, 2015 TESCO offloaded its music streaming service Blinkbox Music to Australian firm Guvera yesterday in a deal thought to be worth around £5m, significantly less than the £12m the supermarket paid to acquire the service in 2012. The sale was quickly followed by the announcement that Tesco’s remaining digital entertainment services, Blinkbox Books, will be shuttered [...]
Flybe shares nosedive after fall in revenue January 26, 2015 SHARES in Flybe Group nosedived nearly 26 per cent yesterday after the Exeter-based budget airline said it would only break even before tax in its financial year ending in March. The embattled carrier, which is attempting a three-year turnaround, said revenues fell by 3.8 per cent to £127m in the quarter from October to the [...]
Balfour Beatty reveals Sussex deal as BNY Mellon buys stake January 26, 2015 US BANK BNY Mellon has purchased a 4.55 per cent stake in construction firm Balfour Beatty through its subsidiary, Newton Investment Management. Balfour announced yesterday that it had received notice that Newton now holds voting rights over 31.4m shares in the company. The building group also revealed yesterday that it has been appointed preferred bidder [...]
OnTheMarket vs Zoopla and Rightmove: We need a buyer-friendly housing market – Bottom Line January 26, 2015 It’s easy to sympathise with the fears of estate agents concerned with a property market increasingly cornered by the duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla. But OnTheMarket seems to have missed the point of why these sites have become popular – ie. by serving the needs of buyers and sellers. OnTheMarket’s troublesome rule that bans its [...]
Zoopla share price soars as OnTheMarket lands with a thud January 26, 2015 Zoopla shares soared 10.4 per cent yesterday as the launch of rival property portal OnTheMarket (OTM), a site backed by a number of estate agents which has weighed on Zoopla shares for months, underwhelmed investors and resolved confidence in Zoopla. “In our mind the much awaited launch of Agents’ Mutual’s OTM has not lived up [...]
Rolls-Royce in £75m deal to help power up South African trains with 232 MTU Series 4000 engines January 26, 2015 Rolls-Royce has signed a €100m (£75m) contract to deliver 232 MTU Series 4000 engines to a subsidiary of Chinese locomotive manufacturer CNR Dalian in South Africa. The engines, which are the most powerful MTU locomotives currently operating with an output of 3,300 kilowatts each, are to be installed in new freight locomotives for South African operator [...]
Post Office Money plans price war to take ground from banks January 26, 2015 THE POST Office yesterday launched a new push to take ground from the big banks, announcing it wants to be a “leading financial services provider” by 2020. It is rebranding its range of financial products as Post Office Money, in a bid to unify its brand, much of which is provided by Bank of Ireland. The institution [...]
CVC Capital Partners sells 12 per cent stake in Indonesian department store PT Matahari January 26, 2015 British private equity giant CVC Capital Partners has offloaded a 12 per cent stake in Indonesian retailer PT Matahari Department Store in two separate deals, it emerged yesterday. In the first deal, the London-headquartered CVC Capital Partners raised 3.67 trillion Indonesian rupiah (£195m) – known as IDR – through the sale of eight per cent [...]
