Retailers try to tempt shoppers with early bargains in the sales June 24, 2012 RETAILERS keen to cash in on a summer of sporting and Jubilee celebrations are offering big discounts in early summer sales. A survey of 100 high street stores by PwC showed that nearly three quarters of shops have started sales or advertising promotions in shop windows, up from 70 per cent a year ago and [...]
Smaller firms are feeling the pinch more June 24, 2012 NEARLY 2,000 British businesses collapsed in May, according to figures from Experian. The rate of insolvencies was stable compared to a year ago at around 0.09 per cent of the overall business population, but the stats showed that firms with between six and 10 staff saw the biggest rise in failures. Experian’s Max Firth said: [...]
UK restrained by one of the highest tax burdens in G8 June 24, 2012 BRITAIN’S tax burden is too high, driving tax avoidance and inhibiting economic growth, according to research published today. Accounting firm UHY Hacker Young warns that the UK is in danger of “losing jobs and investment to overseas competitors” with its total tax burden of 34 per cent of GDP. This compares to reported burdens of [...]
Lib Dem urges tax crackdown June 24, 2012 TREASURY minister Danny Alexander yesterday claimed that the basic rate of tax could be cut by 2p in the pound through a crackdown on tax avoidance. The Liberal Democrat said cutting the amount of uncollected tax by a quarter could enable the saving. It is important that “everybody, especially the rich and famous, are paying [...]
Acquiring firms outperform the rest of market June 24, 2012 EUROPEAN firms that make acquisitions tend to outperform the rest of the market, according to new research released today. Second-quarter figures from Towers Watson’s Quarterly Deal Performance Monitor (QDPM), which records data on all deals with a value of at least $100m (£64m), demonstrates that acquirers within both European and Asia-Pacific markets continue to outperform [...]
OLYMPIC MEDIA BUZZ LONDON 2012 PARTNERS June 24, 2012 IN ASSOCIATION with Repskan.com, City A.M. is measuring the relative Olympic media buzz around the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games partners, week by week. The leaderboard, right, reflects their ranking over the past week, in this case from Wednesday 13 June to Wednesday 20 June. British Airways has jumped in the rankings, following the [...]
Coins are cool at the British Museum display June 24, 2012 The Money Gallery at the British Museum re-launches today – with a prototype British coin produced for its possible entry into the euro back in the late 1990s. The gallery, which is sponsored by Citi, includes thousands of the artefacts showing the history of money, including a sample British 20 cent coin produced for the [...]
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 24, 2012 Regard Sandie Foxall-Smith has been appointed chief executive of the care specialist group. She joins after four years as chief executive of St Peter’s Hospice in Bristol, and replaces co-founder and major shareholder John Farragher. Foxall-Smith has many years’ experience in the healthcare sector, and previously served as director of development at Circle Health and [...]
BEST of the BROKERS June 24, 2012 STANDARD CHARTERED Canaccord Genuity rates the bank “sell” with a target price of £13.25. The broker expects to see evidence of double-digit asset and earnings growth in StanChart’s interim management statement on Wednesday, but thinks this growth is already factored into the share price. INVENSYS UBS rates the software maker a “buy” with a target [...]
LONDON REPORT June 24, 2012 UK GDP and a two-day EU summit aimed at containing the Eurozone debt crisis will dominate economic news, while investors await trading reports from Debenhams and Carpetright. The Office for National Statistics is expected to confirm that Britain is in a double-dip recession when it publishes its third estimate of GDP in the first quarter. [...]
