BILL OF THE WEEK January 22, 2012 DID THE Chelsea speakeasy Barts have City profits in mind when it designed its new “up in smoke” drinks menu? Not at all, says the bar – in these post-smoking-ban days, it is all about giving smokers a nicotine hit without having to stand outside in the cold. Among the first to get their fix [...]
Universal could divest to secure EMI takeover bid January 22, 2012 UNIVERSAL Music Group could be forced to sell small parts of its empire to appease critics who argue that its takeover of British record label EMI will harm competition. The £1.2bn deal announced in November would see Universal behind 49.5 per cent of European music downloads and 54 per cent of airplay tracks, according to [...]
Costa and captain trade blame January 22, 2012 The operators of the Costa Concordia faced questions over their share of the blame for the shipwreck, as divers recovered another body from the stricken liner yesterday, bringing the known death toll to 13. Captain Francesco Schettino, who is charged with multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship, told prosecutors he had been instructed to perform the [...]
France moots no tax for bonds January 22, 2012 Europe’s proposal for a tax on financial transactions would not apply to bonds issues by governments because states need to be able to finance themselves, said France’s finance minister Francois Baroin yesterday. France plans to plow ahead with its own transaction tax even as other European nations are taking longer to agree on how to [...]
Sparks to fly at Mitchells & Butlers annual meeting January 22, 2012 THE BOARDROOM drama continues at pub group Mitchells & Butlers this week, with all five directors up for re-election at its AGM in Birmingham on Thursday. The AGM follows renewed criticism of the board by Pirc and the Association of British Insurers, which last week raised concerns that M&B is the only FTSE 350 firm [...]
JURY SELECTION BEGINS FOR STANFORD TRIAL January 22, 2012 THE long-awaited trial of Allen Stanford, the Texan financier accused of orchestrating a $7.2bn (£4.6bn) Ponzi scheme, begins today with the selection of the jury. While Stanford was charged in 2009 for Antigua-based fraud operations, he has since remained in custody throughout several postponements of the trial on claims that, due to a prison brawl [...]
Hope for hedge funds as client redemptions fall to a new low January 22, 2012 REDEMPTION requests by hedge fund clients have fallen to the lowest monthly level on record as improving market sentiment combined with a typical seasonal lull in asset re-allocation, data shows. The GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator, a monthly snapshot of clients giving notice to withdraw their cash as a percentage of GlobeOp’s assets under administration, measured [...]
Olympic Media Buzz LONDON 2012 PARTNERS January 22, 2012 IN ASSOCIATION with Repskan.com, the media monitoring and analytics platform, City A.M. is measuring the relative Olympic media buzz around the partners for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, week by week. The leaderboard, right, reflects their ranking over the past week, in this case from Wednesday 11 January to Wednesday 18 January. British [...]
HERON’S PEAK SIGNS UP TWO NEW TENANTS January 22, 2012 PROPERTY tycoon Gerald Ronson’s Heron International has leased the first and third floor of its Peak office development in Victoria to Reed Executive, the recruitment firm and David Sainsbury’s Gatsby Charitable Foundation, for £65 per square foot.
Reading will stay prudent, Madejski says January 22, 2012 THE outgoing owner of Reading FC has warned against hopes of a spending spree once he has completed a deal to sell the club to a Russian tycoon. Sir John Madejski is locked in due diligence and expects to finalise a deal with Thames Sports Investment (TSI) by the end of March. Yesterday he claimed [...]
