Veto for Smith & Nephew bid January 9, 2011 BRITISH medical equipment firm Smith & Nephew rejected a £7bn takeover approach from US rival Johnson & Johnson late last year. Johnson & Johnson was considering whether to return with a higher offer, after its indicative bid of more than 750 pence a share was turned down as too low. No one at Smith & [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 9, 2011 Wm Morrison The supermarket giant has appointed Belinda Youngs to the role of own brand director, as part of four new additions to its senior management team. Youngs joins from Canadian food retailer Sobeys, where she was chief marketing officer, and is tasked with developing Morrisons’ own brand into a market leader. She is joined by [...]
Tesco and Sainsbury’s boost UK market share January 9, 2011 THREE of the UK’s big four supermarket chains are reporting Christmas figures this week, with analysts expecting Tesco and J Sainsbury to have boosted their market share. Research company Kantar suggests that Sainsbury’s advanced its share of the British grocery market by 0.3 per cent to 16.4 per cent while Tesco saw a lift of [...]
Analyst views: What is the outlook for retailers’ figures this week? January 9, 2011 NICK BUBB | ARDEN “The resilience of trading at the premium end of the High Street, as evidenced by John Lewis, is still striking. Investors can’t buy shares in John Lewis, but they can buy shares in M&S, which is the best proxy for the strength of middle-class spending on food and clothing.” KEITH BOWMAN [...]
Factory boom to boost the UK economy January 9, 2011 BRITAIN’S factories will continue to drive the economy forwards this year, manufacturers’ association the EEF said today. The sector exceeded expectations by growing 3.8 per cent in 2010 and will expand by a further 3.5 per cent this year, the group predicted in its 2011 economic forecast. Exports, particularly to emerging markets, will be key [...]
Cameron warns over inflationary dangers ahead of Bank rates decision January 9, 2011 UNEXPECTEDLY high inflation could exacerbate splits in the Bank of England’s rate setting committee, which meets this week. Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday expressed concern about the UK’s inflation, which is consistently above target. “Inflation is extremely harmful. It destroys people’s savings,” he said. “We don’t want to go back to having an inflation problem [...]
Economists’ views: Raise rates to tackle inflation? January 9, 2011 VICKY REDWOOD | CAPITAL ECONOMICS “The MPC still seems to believe inflation will fall, further ahead. If anything we think there’ll be more QE, perhaps by August. The labour market is weak.” MICHAEL SAUNDERS | CITIGROUP “CPI inflation will hit four per cent by mid 2011, and core inflation is still a lot higher than [...]
Job security vital to wellbeing January 9, 2011 Jobs, health and family are the most important factors for people’s wellbeing, the government announced today. The results are part of an ongoing “debate on how to measure national wellbeing,” already involving more than two thousand respondents. “We want to encourage people to tell us what matters to them,” said programme director Paul Allin. Yet [...]
IMF: Legacy of debt for America January 9, 2011 Government debts in the US pose a “major challenge” for years to come, a leading member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said yesterday. The US had a $1.3 trillion (£836bn) budget deficit in the fiscal year to September 2010. Spending is leaving a “legacy of high debt,” IMF’s John Lipsky told a meeting in [...]
Snow excuse for low retail sales January 9, 2011 Retailers mostly overcame the December blizzards to post respectable sales figures, business advisory group BDO said yesterday. Despite the coldest December for 100 years, sales dropped by just half a per cent. And some stores, such as John Lewis, reported healthy sales growth. Fears of products being snowed into factories failed to materialise, as non [...]
