Costume party at the Lord Mayor‘s Mansion January 7, 2013 FOCUS is firmly on the youth of the City this week, with the Lord Mayor Roger Gifford opening up Mansion House over the weekend to host 350 children from London boroughs for a fancy dress party. A source tells The Capitalist he even led a conga line at the end of the day – but it [...]
Firms demand bold policy to lift 2013 growth January 7, 2013 GOVERNMENT needs to take “bold and imaginative” policy steps to guarantee 2013 will see the economic turnaround firms are hoping for, a prominent business lobby said this morning. Firms are confident that the coming year will see an improvement in the UK’s economic outlook, according to the British Chamber of Commerce’s (BCC) quarterly report. But [...]
Vroom-vroom but not a boom January 7, 2013 RECORD UK sales for Jaguar Land Rover in 2012 are a rare rosy indicator. Up 19 per cent year on year, without even the benefit of a government industrial policy to spur it on, these numbers must have JLR’s owner Tata Motors purring in delight. And this is not a one-off result. While JLR deserves [...]
2012 marks an end to slack in new car sales January 7, 2013 CAR SALES appeared to have put the worst days of the credit crunch well behind them in 2012, as an upbeat December capped off an impressive year for the market. New car registrations across the whole of 2012 were 2,044,609, up 5.3 per cent of 2011, and the highest since 2008, according to data released yesterday. In [...]
December boost pushes house prices out of year-long slump January 7, 2013 A BIG December jump in house prices has managed to erase most of the downward movement seen in the market over 2012, data suggested yesterday. The average house price rose 1.3 per cent going into December, Halifax said yesterday, a monthly climb that contradicts earlier data from Rightmove and Nationwide, which both suggested 2012’s final month had [...]
Ladbrokes plots online revival with acquisition January 7, 2013 LADBROKES is in talks with Irish gaming company Betdaq over an acquisition of the online bookie, the company said yesterday. Negotiations, which have been ongoing for some time, could result in a deal worth roughly £30m within the next few weeks. Buying Betdaq would bolster Ladbrokes’ online presence, which has failed to keep up with [...]
TV makers battle for survival in Las Vegas January 7, 2013 THE WORLD’S biggest TV manufacturers yesterday staked their claims for dominance of the next generation of sets, unveiling a host of super-detailed and internet-connected sets they hope will revitalise a struggling market. Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba and LG all used yesterday’s curtain-raiser to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to debut bigger and brighter [...]
Pearson’s new boss writes down £120m January 7, 2013 THE NEW boss of Financial Times publisher Pearson announced a £120m writedown yesterday, as he said the publisher would close its UK adult educational unit. John Fallon, who took over from long-time chief executive Marjorie Scardino at the start of the year, said he was closing Pearson in Practice, which provides vocational classroom training, due [...]
Berlusconi pact could destabilise Italian coalition January 7, 2013 ITALY’S former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi yesterday announced an alliance with the right-wing Northern League party that could prevent the centre-left forming a stable government after next month’s elections. Berlusconi has been striving for weeks to seal the deal with his estranged former allies to strengthen the centre-right bloc, under a strategy to confound the [...]
Eurozone factory prices drop ahead of rate-setter meeting January 7, 2013 EUROZONE factory prices fell for the first time in five months in November, pulled down by a slide in the cost of energy and giving the European Central Bank ample room to consider another interest rate cut. Prices at factory gates in the 17 countries using the euro fell 0.2 per cent in November from [...]
