Cable plans to shake up exec pay disclosure June 22, 2011 VINCE Cable, the business secretary, could force firms to change the way they disclose how much their top executives earn as part of plans to overhaul the rules governing annual reports. In a statement, Cable’s Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) department said he wanted to “see progress in bringing excessive, unjustified pay under control”. Next [...]
Britain could struggle to cut benefits bill, says NAO June 22, 2011 IAIN Duncan Smith, the welfare secretary, has been warned he could miss ambitious targets for slashing Britain’s benefits bill. The National Audit Office (NAO) said the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) would need to make “rapid progress” if it is to cut its overall spending by almost £20bn over the next four years. If [...]
Two banks hit by FSA money laundering probe June 22, 2011 TWO banks are being investigated for lax money-laundering controls and others are likely to be handling the proceeds of corruption and other financial crime, Britain’s financial watchdog said yesterday. The FSA said the two institutions, both believed to be private banks, had shown “serious weaknesses” in how they managed “high-risk” customers, including those whose public [...]
Big six energy utilities hit by Ofgem threat June 22, 2011 BRITAIN’S six largest utilities face tough retail power market reforms next year that could force them to auction off more than one fifth of electricity they produce, energy regulator Ofgem announced yesterday. The regulator proposed in March that it could impose power production auctions of up to twenty percent of generation on the Big Six [...]
BP and Transocean play blame game over oil spill June 22, 2011 A FRESH row broke out between the firms involved in last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill yesterday after oil driller Transocean published its internal review of the blast, which killed 11 workers, and pinned the blame on BP. Transocean said yesterday that BP failed to properly judge the risks on board the rig, having [...]
News Corp’s bid for Sky to get clearance June 22, 2011 CULTURE secretary Jeremy Hunt is likely to rubber stamp News Corp’s bid for BSkyB within a fortnight. He is expected to trigger a final seven day period of consultation after receiving documents from Ofcom outlining a series of guarantees over the future financial and editorial independence of Sky News. Hunt will be unable to issue [...]
Kesa weighs Comet sell-off as sales fall June 22, 2011 ELECTRICALS retailer Kesa yesterday admitted that it was weighing up a sale of its Comet business and revealed that it had already received a number of approaches. The company said there would be a “strategic review” which would take at least three months and look at a range of options for Comet, including disposal. Stressing [...]
Electrical retailers face bleak future June 22, 2011 LOCATING the source of Kesa’s woes is fraught with difficulty, but its problems aren’t particularly new. Electrical retailers have been trading on wafer-thin margins for many years now, a fact that was disguised by the boom years when the property bubble meant TVs and white goods sold by the lorry load. When the crisis hit, [...]
Tesco lays out plans to revamp Europe business June 22, 2011 TESCO said yesterday it planned to double returns from its central and eastern European business by buying more goods regionally, opening a variety of stores and selling more services. At its annual results in April, the British supermarket group set a target to boost company-wide returns to 14.6 per cent by 2014-15 from 12.9 per [...]
H&M PROFIT HIT BY RISING COSTS June 22, 2011 Hennes & Mauritz, the world’s second-largest fashion retailer, posted an 18 per cent fall in second-quarter pre-tax profit yesterday, showing the impact of higher cotton prices, rising wages in Asia and a strong Swedish crown. Profit fell to 5.75bn crowns (£558m) from 7.04bn a year earlier. H&M said it had kept product prices down in [...]
