New car sales up 2 per cent in 2010 January 7, 2011 New car sales rose almost two per cent over the course of 2010, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said, but it warned the coming year would be tough. The SMMT said new car registrations rose by almost 36,000 to total 2.03m last year, ending 1.8 per cent up on 2009 figures. The fleet [...]
Robert Walters sees fees soar with China boost January 7, 2011 WHITE-COLLAR recruitment firm Robert Walters said net fees for the year grew by nearly half, bolstered by growth in China and strong levels of activity across its markets which the company expects to continue. The white-collar recruiter said that group net fee income, also known as gross profit, rose 49 per cent to £155.3m from [...]
OFT to probe Thomas Cook and Co-op merger January 7, 2011 The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is to probe a move by Thomas Cook and the Co-operative Group to merge their High Street travel businesses. The European Commission had studied the deal but decided the OFT was better placed to investigate because the merger would only affect UK business. Thomas Cook said it would “continue [...]
CSC revises bid for Trafford Centre January 7, 2011 Capital Shopping Centres (CSC) has announced new terms for its proposed acquisition of Manchester’s Trafford Centre from Peel Group. CSC said the shares for The Trafford Centre will be issued at 400p rather than the 368p originally agreed. The number of shares Peel will receive has been cut to 205.9m, from 224.1m as a result [...]
EasyJet passenger numbers climb January 7, 2011 EasyJet’a passenger traffic numbers rose 7.6 per cent from a year earlier in December, following a similar rise in numbers at rival budget airline Ryanair. EasyJet said it carried 3,657,186 last month, while its load factor – which measures the amount of seats filled on a plane – rose by 0.4 percentage points from last [...]
Euro zone confidence on the up January 6, 2011 Euro zone economic sentiment jumped to a 38-month high in December pointing to healthy growth in the last quarter of 2010, but also to a growing divergence between core and peripheral euro zone countries. A monthly survey by the European Commission showed the economic sentiment in the 16 countries using the euro in December rose [...]
Lenders expect stable credit conditions January 6, 2011 Lenders expect credit conditions to remain broadly steady in the first quarter of 2011 but are bracing for a further drop in mortgage demand and slightly higher losses from mortgage defaults, a survey by the Bank of England showed. The central bank’s quarterly credit conditions survey highlights the continued reluctance among banks to extend credit [...]
Service sector activity plunges to 20-month low January 6, 2011 Large swathes of the service sector suffered their first fall in output since April 2009 last month, a major survey showed on Thursday, pointing to a sharp slowdown in economic growth at the end of 2010. GDP probably grew by just 0.4 per cent in the last three months of 2010, lower than many economists [...]
British Land pays £240m for Plymouth mall January 6, 2011 British Land, the second-biggest landlord by market value, has bought a mall in Plymouth for £240m to add to its growing retail portfolio. The 425,000 square feet Drake Circus shopping centre was bought at a net initial yield of six percent, with the potential for income growth through asset management, the real estate investment trust [...]
Costain raises Mouchel bid offer to £150m January 6, 2011 Construction firm Costain has made an increased all-share offer approach to struggling business services group Mouchel, valuing the company at about £150m. Costain said it would offer 0.5947 new shares for each Mouchel share. The offer values each Mouchel share at about 135 pence per share, based on Wednesday’s closing prices. In December, Mouchel rejected [...]
