LONDON LEADS THE WAY TO RECORD RENTS June 16, 2011 Rents across England and Wales reached fresh highs in May, according to LSL Property Services figures out today. The average rent bill rose by 0.5 per cent during May to hit £696 a month, with tenants in the East of England suffering the biggest jump of 1.4 per cent month-on-month. London has been head and [...]
CWW in a bid to buy up 2e2 June 16, 2011 CABLE & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) is in preliminary talks to buy cloud services firm 2e2 in a deal that could be worth £400m. Beleaguered CWW hopes to wrest control of the firm from its private equity backer Duke Street, which owns just under half of the IT company, and Hutton Collins, which owns 24 per cent. CWW [...]
Cairn founder steps aside for homegrown talent June 16, 2011 CAIRN Energy’s founder Sir Bill Gammell said he would step back from the day-to-day running of the oil explorer to become non-executive chairman yesterday. He succeeds Norman Murray, who after nine years as chairman and 12 on the board is leaving to concentrate on other positions, including at oilfield facilities firm Petrofac. Sir Bill will [...]
Use of covered bonds as a form of bank funding likely to tail off June 16, 2011 THE TREND towards the use of covered bonds as a form of secured funding for banks will tail off, ratings agency Fitch claims. Regulators want to encourage banks to use more secure methods of funding, such as covered bonds, in order to make them less susceptible to periods of financial stress. But, despite a growing [...]
EasyJet to fly to Southend by Olympics June 16, 2011 CUT-PRICE airline easyJet yesterday said it is to start flying out of Southend airport in Essex from April 2012, just months before the Olympics open in east London. EasyJet expects to fly 800,000 passengers through the airport in its first year, routing 70 flights per week to ten European cities including Barcelona and Ibiza in [...]
CITY VIEWS: WILL EASYJET’S MOVE HELP TO EASE RUNWAY CAPACITY PROBLEMS? June 16, 2011 SEAN SMITH | AXA “No, Southend is too far from London, there isn’t very good rail linking and it is pretty hard to travel to from central London. I don’t think people would want to travel that far.” MICHAEL KING | JR CLARE “Yes, it’s not like it could make it any worse. It would [...]
Passengers may face a £1bn bill from air tax rise June 16, 2011 AIRLINE Virgin Atlantic yesterday warned that proposed changes to Air Passenger Duty (APD) could cost holidaymakers £1bn in extra taxes, as the government prepares to close its consultation on the matter today. APD raised £2bn in 2010, but in its response to the possible reforms Virgin said this could jump to £3bn – with costs passed [...]
UK business drags on WS Atkins gains June 16, 2011 INFRASTRUCTURE design consultancy WS Atkins said its global growth strategy made it better able to manage the difficult economic environment, helping it post a 9.4 per cent rise in pre-tax profit in the past year. Atkins said revenues increased by 12.7 per cent to £1.56bn in the year to the end of March, while underlying [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: ARE THERE WEAKNESSES IN WS ATKINS’ RESULTS? June 16, 2011 CHRISTOPHER BAMBERRY | PEEL HUNT Atkins delivered a strong set of prelims, five per cent ahead of our expectations, because of the outperformance of the Middle East business. Although a well managed market leader, Atkins is over 50 per cent exposed to the UK, which will in our opinion impede growth over the next two [...]
US rentals lift growth at hire firm Ashtead June 16, 2011 BRITISH industrial equipment hire company Ashtead said a continued shift to rentals from ownership left it well placed for 2012, after posting full-year pre-tax profit in line with expectations. The FTSE 250 company, which hires out equipment from diggers to small tools, yesterday said the trend of contractors renting rather than buying equipment had continued [...]
