Kim Dotcom set for £109m Mega listing March 25, 2014 Billionaire internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is hoping to list his online storage service Mega on the New Zealand stock exchange for £109m. Dotcom who is is wanted by US authorities for copyright infringement started the site in January 2013. In 2012, Dotcom's house was raided by police and items were seized. The US Justice department [...]
Meet the computer than can make a million billion calculations a second March 25, 2014 A new £43m supercomputer that is capable of over one million billion calculations a second, is to be unveiled at the National Museum of Scotland on Tuesday. The Academic Research Computing High End Resource (Archer) is intended to provide high performance computing support for research and industry projects in the UK. The government said Archer [...]
Kingfisher shares climb on bumper profits March 25, 2014 B&Q owner Kingfisher is enjoying a rise in share price of four per cent after the company announced bumper profits before tax of 9.8 per cent to £759m for the year 2013/14. The company saw revenues rise 5.2 per cent to £11bn despite a difficult first quarter in 2013 and a weak economic environment in [...]
Centrica lands €1.1bn Irish deal March 25, 2014 Energy giant Centrica together with private equity groups Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners and iCON Infrastructure Partners II have agreed to buy Irish energy firm Bord Gais Energy (BGE) for €1.1bn (£0.9bn). Centrica will take ownership of BGE's electricity supply business in Ireland as well as the Whitegate gas-fired power station, with an enterprise value of [...]
EasyJet cuts loss expectations and forecasts rising revenue March 25, 2014 Budget airline EasyJet has slashed its expectations for a pre-tax loss in the six months to 31 March from between £70m and £90m to between £55m and £65m. The company also expects a rise in revenue per seat of 1.5 per cent. Analysts at Investec have taken kindly to the results upgrading EasyJet from "hold" [...]
Royal Mail set to axe 1,600 jobs March 25, 2014 Royal Mail has outlined proposals to cut the number of jobs at the company by 1,600 as part of its continued efficiency programme. However, Royal Mail hopes to create 300 new roles taking net reduction of jobs to 1,300. The majority of those impacted work in the company's operational and managerial departments. The programme is [...]
Any Other Business – 25/03 March 25, 2014 THERE could be some misty eyes over at the CBI’s Centre Point base this week – its staff will be saying goodbye to their home of 30 years and moving to Cannon Street as of next Monday. Board member and former CBI Scotland chair Linda Urquhart sent an emotional tweet yesterday: “Last ever CBI board [...]
Asian markets flat after US manufacturing slowdown March 25, 2014 Asian markets are holding steady as investors wait to see how events in Ukraine unfold and whether the slowdown in US manufacturing continues. Markets will be watching not only the West's response to the annexation of Crimea but whether Russia will slip into recession. Japan's Shoko Chukin survey revealed that a last minute spending rush [...]
Government rejects calls to ban payday loan ads on children’s TV March 24, 2014 The government has rejected calls to ban outright payday loan adverts on children's TV. The government responded to a report published in December by a committee of MPs suggesting that payday loan adverts should be banned from programming aimed at children, saying: Payday loan adverts are subject to the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) strict content rules. [...]
EU adopts landmark directive to crackdown on tax evasion March 24, 2014 The European Union has formally adopted the Savings Tax Directive after six years of negotiations. The directive is intended to bolster the power of the EU to crackdown on tax evasion. The measure was adopted shortly after Luxembourg and Austria abandoned their opposition to the plan. EU tax commissioner Algirdas Semeta, commenting on the directive [...]
