It’s going to be a very tough fight March 5, 2012 WHEN Boris Johnson took the Mayoralty from Ken Livingstone in 2008, many observers thought a repeat victory in 2012 was a foregone conclusion. If recent polls are anything to go by, that most certainly isn’t the case: with just two months to go, the race is too close to call. “The polls are very close [...]
Dunelm stock plunges as ex-chief sells 7.5m shares March 5, 2012 JUST OVER a year after stepping down as chief executive of Dunelm, Will Adderley, along with his wife Nadine, got rid of a 3.7 per cent stake in the soft furnishings family business. But Will, the son of the company’s founder, insists he “remains fully committed to Dunelm”, is staying on as executive deputy chairman [...]
Tablet sales cannibalising desktop PCs March 5, 2012 TOMORROW’S Apple announcement could bring more bad news for the desktop computer market, with the Cupertino-based company expected to reveal the third generation iPad and trigger a tablet shopping frenzy. When the iPad 2 was launched this time last year, online marketplace eBay sold 5,000 more tablets in March than in February as iPad-hungry shoppers [...]
Paddy Power bets on Italy as online gambling leads to record fiscal year March 5, 2012 ONLINE sales drastically boosted Paddy Power last year, leading the Irish gaming company to report a 16 per cent rise in pre-tax profits to €121.2m (£101m), with adjusted earnings per share up 26 per cent, better than the 15-20 per cent growth forecast in November. Global online operating profit reached €97.1m for Paddy Power, a [...]
Paris is now the priciest place to rent March 5, 2012 PARIS has leapfrogged London to become the most expensive capital city to rent residential property, according to research released today by estate agent Savills. The World Class Cities index, which analyses the cost of renting and buying in the world’s top 10 cities, shows the average cost of renting increased by 2.3 per cent in [...]
CONRAN TO CREATE TUSCAN RESORT March 5, 2012 SIR Terence Conran has been signed up to transform a hilltop village in Tuscany into a €100m (£83m) luxury resort. An existing hotel on the Il Ciocco estate is being refurbished as the Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco Resort & Spa, which will stand among a community of around 100 new houses. Estate agency Knight Frank [...]
ITV renews deal with Scotland March 5, 2012 ITV has agreed to sell its Channel 3 programming schedule to Scottish broadcaster STV and Northern Irish network UTV for a fixed income regardless of how many shows they broadcast – rather than a revenue proportion – in a deal that sees ITV retain control of the rights to its shows. Although the move is [...]
Aegis expands in China March 5, 2012 Aegis has turned to China to increase its expanding investment portfolio. The FTSE 250 group said yesterday that it has agreed to add Chinese digital agency Beijing eLink Advertising to its digital arm Isobar for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 2007, eLink’s gross assets at the close of 2011 were £3m. It counts blue-chip companies China [...]
Tepco investors launch lawsuit March 5, 2012 Shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in northeast Japan, are suing the utility’s executives for a record 5.5 trillion yen (£42.5bn) in compensation, lawyers said. In the biggest claim of its kind in Japan, 42 shareholders filed a lawsuit accusing 27 current and former Tepco directors of ignoring [...]
Petrofac sees profits surge by a quarter March 5, 2012 BRITISH oil services firm Petrofac said it was confident it would win new contracts this year, a must to put it on track to meet its growth targets, after it posted a forecast-beating 25 per cent jump in profit in 2011. Petrofac said it was seeing a strong pipeline of opportunities across both parts of [...]
