British American Tobacco sees volumes fall despite emerging market growth April 30, 2014 British American Tobacco (BAT) has reported a fall in revenue of 12 per cent at current rates of exchange for the three months ended 31 March. The decline in revenue was attributed to lower volume and the timing of price increases. The tobacco giant's cigarette volume from subsidiaries declined by one per cent 158bn, with [...]
Asian markets fluctuate before Fed policy decision April 30, 2014 Asian markets switched between gains and losses after earnings reports gave a boost to Wall Street and the Bank of Japan (BoJ) left policy unchanged. However, investors held back in anticipation of the Federal Reserve's decision on monetary policy. The Fed is widely expected to continue tapering of its bond-buying programme. Few investors believed the [...]
MIT undergrads land $500,000 of free Bitcoin April 29, 2014 Two students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have raised $500,000 for a bold new project to create a Bitcoin "ecosystem" at the heart of one of America's most prestigious university's. All 4,528 of MIT's undergraduates will receive $100 worth of Bitcoin this Autumn. Founder of MIT's Bitcoin club Dan Elitzer and computer science [...]
Who is Nokia’s new chief executive Rajeev Suri? April 29, 2014 Nokia this morning appointed 46-year-old Rajeev Suri as chief executive officer to run its business following the €5.44bn (£4.48bn) sale of its handset division to Microsoft. Last week’s sale saw former chief executive Stephen Elop return to Microsoft to run its newly acquired mobile division. The ‘turnaround specialist’ Up until now Suri has led Nokia [...]
Jump in Costa sales drives profit growth for Whitbread April 29, 2014 Leisure giant Whitbread has announced a boom in underlying profits before tax of 16.5 per cent to £412m for the financial year ending 26 February. Total revenue rose by a hefty 13 per cent to £2.2bn, with like-for-like sales rising by 4.2 per cent. Strong sales at both Premier Inn and Costa were significant drivers [...]
Carphone Warehouse revenue up as new stores open for business April 29, 2014 Carphone Warehouse has announced a rise in like-for-like revenue of 2.3 per cent for the 13 weeks ended 29 March. However, overall connections dropped 10 per cent thanks to the continued weakness in the prepay market. The company gained momentum from 4G services, which drove rising levels of data take-up compared to the previous period [...]
Asian markets indecisive as US imposes fresh sanctions April 29, 2014 Asian markets have been switching between gains and losses after a less than impressive day on Wall Street and the crisis in Ukraine continued to give investors reason for caution. The US has deployed more troops in eastern Europe and imposed fresh sanctions in response to Russia's activity in the region. The new sanctions target [...]
In full: Gotham City defends £1bn Quindell raid April 28, 2014 Gotham City Research, the mysterious US short seller who last week wiped nearly £1bn from the value of Quindell following a scathing blog post, explained its actions in an email to City A.M. yesterday. "Gotham City Research is a firm believer of a free society, democracy, and free speech. Consequently, we believe that short selling [...]
Three Green Party policies that would strangle EU growth April 28, 2014 The Green party of England and Wales has kicked off its campaign for May's European elections. The party's leader Natalie Bennett launched the campaign with a pointed attack on Ukip: As far as I can work out, Nigel Farage has entirely written it off so that Ukip has no policies at all. It seems to [...]
Three hurdles the Publicis-Omnicom merger faces April 28, 2014 The $35bn mega-merger of Publicis and Omnicom is facing continued uncertainty. Omnicom chief executive John Wren said last week that he was unsure when the deal would complete due to its “complexity and open issues”. There are three main issues that have yet to be ironed out by management of the new company, to be [...]
