Think about how you hand over the keys October 2, 2011 THE CORPORATE FINANCE NETWORK Management buyouts (MBO) seem to have fallen out of favour. You just need to look at the recent Experian Corpin figures to see that there have been huge reductions in recent years. From 2005 to 2011 the number of businesses involved in MBOs has halved from 403 to 217. The figure [...]
Plotting the growth of the market October 2, 2011 WHEN spread betting started in 1974, it was set up to get around the strict price controls that were in place in the UK – at the time it was illegal for retail investors to speculate on gold. Unemployed stockbroker Stuart Wheeler hit upon the idea of creating an index giving investors a way of [...]
THE WEEK AHEAD October 2, 2011 COMPANY NEWS ● James Halstead announces today. Its flooring can be found near and far: from the Scott Base in Antarctica, to the Svalbard Hotel on the edge of the polar icecap. ● Tomorrow, Wolseley will deliver its full year results. The FTSE 100 heating and plumbing distributor operates in 25 countries, with 4,400 branches [...]
THE TIPSTER October 2, 2011 IT is a busy week this week for retailers with Tesco and several others updating the markets with their latest trading statements. Tesco has been wobbling like an errant trolley between 355p and 385p for nearly two months now. Until this range is broken, look to sell at the top and buy at the bottom. [...]
SIR PAUL JUDGE OPENS PENTHOUSE HOME FOR COFFEE AND CHAMPAGNE October 2, 2011 IT WAS hard to know who won the cake-making competition at Sir Paul Judge’s coffee morning on Friday – “they were all anonymous” – but with free champagne from Bollinger and chocolate from Green & Blacks on tap, no-one was counting. The Chartered Institute of Marketing president threw open his riverside penthouse for the Macmillan [...]
BILL OF THE WEEK October 2, 2011 THEY steered clear of the eight-course taster menu at £150 per head, but the three hedge fund managers who visited chef Nigel Mendham’s new restaurant Thirty Six at Dukes Hotel on St James’s Place still managed to rack up a sizeable tab. Starting with three glasses of Perrier Jouet Blanson champagne to accompany their starters [...]
Brisbane: still surfing, sun, and lots of fun October 2, 2011 NOT so long ago, Brisbane was little more than the country cousin to Sydney and Melbourne, and the gateway to Surfers Paradise and Noosa. However, this city, the third largest in Australia, and the capital of Queensland, is transforming into a fast-paced modern metropolis. Brisvegas, as it is affectionately known, is making a name for [...]
TRAVEL NOTES October 2, 2011 Celebratory cocktails with Dorchester Last chance to see out 2012 fashion weeks in style by sipping specially-created fashion season cocktails at the Dorchester and 45 Park Lane. Or if you’re still in Paris, pop into the Hôtel Plaza Athénée (pictured above) for a Mexican mescal-based number. Available until 5 October. www.dorchestercollection.com All aboard for some [...]
The Kindle Fire looks good… But what is it for? October 2, 2011 Apple burned by Kindle Fire. Fire heats up tablet market. Amazon fights the iPad with fire. It’s been a good week for fire related puns (and, therefore a good week for Google, which recently bought a fire-pun patent portfolio and is in the process of litigating against everyone who has used one*). Coverage for Amazon’s [...]
FAMILY TRAVEL October 2, 2011 Having spent much of my childhood climbing apple trees, playing pooh sticks and putting out milk for hedgehogs at my grandfather’s home in Suffolk, it felt natural to kick off this monthly travel column by revisiting the South East with my own family in tow (hubby, bump, two year-old Clementine). We packed up the car [...]
