FOOD & BOOZE NEWS August 22, 2011 BIGGEST FOOD EVENT OF THE YEAR: FRENCH LAUNDRY TO COME TO HARRODS Before Noma and the Fat Duck, the restaurant that usually vied with El Bulli for the “world’s best” title was California’s French Laundry. It’s still seen as one of the greatest places to eat on the planet (by the few who’ve managed to [...]
Gaddafi regime nears collapse August 22, 2011 LIBYAN rebels marched into the centre of Tripoli last night as world leaders hailed the end of the Gaddafi regime and the embattled colonel’s sons were taken into custody. A convoy of thousands of rebel vehicles streamed into Tripoli’s Green Square just after midnight UK time, after a coordinated surge saw Nato-supported forces in Libya [...]
Big squeeze hits family finances August 22, 2011 FAMILY finances are deteriorating at a faster rate than during the depths of the recession, as spiralling energy costs, soaring inflation and falling take-home pay combine to squeeze household spending power, according to new figures released today. The Markit Household Finance Index (HFI) fell to 33.2 in August, with almost 40 per cent of those [...]
Icap warns it could quit EU August 22, 2011 BROKING giant Icap will quit the European Union if a financial transactions tax proposed by Germany and France takes effect across the bloc, the company’s chief executive said yesterday. “Companies like Icap will simply move elsewhere outside the EU if Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel push ahead with this silly tax,” Icap chief executive Michael [...]
Success of Autonomy is all too rare August 22, 2011 AS success stories go, the tale of Autonomy has everything. Its chief executive, Dr Mike Lynch, began work on the mathematical formulas that underpin the firm’s software in the early 1990s, when he was completing a postdoctoral thesis at Cambridge University. In 1996, he founded Autonomy as a tiny startup, and spent the next four [...]
Cable in pay crackdown August 22, 2011 BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable is to launch a fresh assault on executive pay next month, after spending the summer plotting how best to crack down on director remuneration. One of the measures under discussion is forcing public companies to reveal earnings of their best-paid executives, along the lines of the rules imposed on the banking [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 22, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES LLOYDS LOOKS TO EASE DISPOSAL Lloyds Banking Group is in early talks with the City regulator about easing the capital burden for prospective buyers of some of its branches in an effort to remove one of the biggest obstacles to the sale. It hopes to pave the way for a bidder to qualify [...]
Business confidence plunges August 21, 2011 Business confidence has hit its lowest level since the summer of 2009, when the UK was still mired in recession, according to figures released today. The UK Business Confidence Monitor from ICAEW/Grant Thornton fell from 13.7 in the second quarter to 8.1 in the third quarter of this year. The survey also highlighted growing concern [...]
Qinetiq lobbies over golden rule August 21, 2011 British defence technology company QinetiQ is pressing the UK government to make sweeping reforms to the “golden share” agreement that protects the firm from a foreign takeover. The firm’s chief executive, Leo Quinn, has been in talks with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) about relaxing the terms of the golden share for months. Although the [...]
Case against DSK looks set to be dropped August 21, 2011 THE prosecutors in the case of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (pictured) will meet with the hotel maid accusing him of sexual assault today, in a sign the case may be headed for dismissal. Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for the maid, Nafissatou Diallo, said the Manhattan district attorney’s office requested in a letter that Diallo [...]
