Carrefour issues profit alert August 31, 2011 CARREFOUR has warned its 2011 profits will slump 15 per cent as it cuts prices in a bid to reverse falling market share and tackle an increasingly tough economic environment. The French retailer said it was scaling back its Carrefour Planet hypermarket revamp as it continued to face headwinds in Greece and Italy. It also [...]
Earnings at Hermes flying as luxury market booms August 31, 2011 HERMES unveiled record profit margins yesterday as the sale of luxury items continued to weather the overall consumer downturn. The company, best known for its bags and scarves, saw a 49 per cent jump in half-year profits to €290.9m (£257.4m). Sales were up by 22 per cent at €1.31bn, with jewellery and watches performing particularly [...]
WH Smith plans to buy back £50m more shares August 31, 2011 WH Smith is to double its share buyback scheme by mopping up another £50m of stock, the retailer said yesterday. In October the group announced a share repurchase programme for the 12 months to 31 August of £50m, which was then extended by a further £5m. The group will now buy back another £50m for [...]
HOLLYWOOD A-LISTERS HIRED BY M&S August 31, 2011 MARKS & Spencer has unveiled a new marketing campaign starring Hollywood A-listers Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Ryan Reynolds. Transformers star Huntington-Whiteley and romcom actor Reynolds will be used to plug the firm’s Autograph collection. The move by boss Marc Bolland is aimed at widening the retailer’s international appeal.
Asian exit sends message to ailing US arm August 31, 2011 IF a butterfly flaps its wings in China, it changes the weather in New York. And if Tesco exits Japan, it sends a chill wind through its US business. The decision to pull out of Japan was a no-brainer. It had a sub-scale operation of just 140 stores, a work-force of 4,367, and annual sales [...]
Buchan rejects payout as he exits Southern Cross August 31, 2011 JAMIE Buchan, the chief executive brought in to turn around care home operator Southern Cross, refused to accept a final payout of more than £400,000 as he left the firm yesterday. Buchan declined a £430,000 golden handshake and a £64,000 pension payment after cutting his basic salary by 20 per cent in February. His austerity [...]
India and China mint millionaires August 31, 2011 Asia will add 1.66m dollar-millionaires by 2015, taking the total number of wealthy to 2.82m as the world’s fastest-growing major economies of China and India continue to mint millionaires, a report from Julius Baer said yesterday. The Swiss wealth manager forecast that the total wealth of people with $1m or more in investable assets would [...]
IBM buys British analytics firm August 31, 2011 IBM has agreed to buy British security analytics software firm i2 for an undisclosed sum, it said yesterday, as it continues to devour companies that can help its clients deal with growing mountains of data. Privately held i2, which says its software helped US forces track down former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, is based in [...]
UK law firm revenues top £15bn in 2011 August 31, 2011 AFTER a bleak couple of years for the UK’s legal sector, revenues at the country’s biggest law firms are looking far healthier this year, as the most successful firms look to international markets and strategic mergers to grow profits. Total revenues at the top 100 law firms in the UK rose by 13 per cent [...]
Third bidder circles loss-making Omega August 31, 2011 TROUBLED Lloyd’s insurer Omega Insurance yesterday said it hoped to secure a buyer soon, as it posted a $49.1m (£30m) loss for the first half of the year. The third bidder for Omega emerged yesterday as Mark Byrne, the founder of Bermuda-based insurer Flagstone Re and son of insurance scion Jack Byrne, who managed GE’s [...]
