Rates hiked at Santander October 2, 2012 BORROWERS who have a mortgage at Santander face higher repayments from today, when the lending giant raises its standard variable rate (SVR). Santander will raise its SVR 0.5 percentage points, to 4.74 per cent, blaming increasing funding costs, which it says drove competitors’ SVRs up five months ago. It also laid the blame on liquidity, [...]
Barclays promotions signify cultural shift towards retail October 2, 2012 BARCLAYS yesterday gave two top executives from the retail end of its business seats on its executive committee, as new boss Antony Jenkins realigns the bank’s management toward high street banking. Valerie Soranno Keating, chief executive of Barclaycard, and Ashok Vaswani, chief executive of UK retail and business banking, will report directly to group chief [...]
Wolseley hands out £350m divi October 2, 2012 WOLSELEY yesterday announced it will reward shareholders with a £350m special dividend after a strong performance in the US and Canada helped the plumbing and builders’ merchant post a 10 per cent rise in full-year profit. The group, which owns the Plumb Centre and Ferguson chains in the UK, said it has generated £317m over [...]
Financial firms fall out of top brands October 2, 2012 BARCLAYS, Zurich and UBS have dropped out of a list of the world’s top 100 brands, making way for a slew of tech and luxury firms – as well as a well-known nappy maker. “Recent events, such as the notorious Libor scandal, have tarnished the reputation of leading brands,” said Interbrand, which compiled the 13th [...]
Did Wolseley’s full year performance meet expectations? October 2, 2012 GRAHAM SPOONER | THE SHARE CENTRE Wolseley reported results largely in line with expectations and said it has moved into a cash positive position…The share price has had a good run recently and with the company’s restructuring complete and the economic environment remaining uncertain, we feel any further upside may be limited. With the company [...]
Probe into rail bids as First’s contract axed October 2, 2012 THE GOVERNMENT last night backed down to Sir Richard Branson’s legal challenge over FirstGroup winning the West Coast rail route, admitting to “significant technical flaws” in the process. Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin cancelled the competition, which controversially saw the route awarded to First from December. The process will now have to be rerun, with Virgin [...]
Government austerity boosts Babcock to a strong first half October 2, 2012 ENGINEERING support services firm Babcock said yesterday that trading had been in line with expectations, and it was confident it could meet forecasts for the full financial year. Babcock, which maintains British navy submarines, said in a statement yesterday it continues to see “buoyant” market conditions, benefitting from governments outsourcing more work to the private [...]
Timing is all in the sticky business of running the trains October 2, 2012 IT would have seemed like a safe bet yesterday morning to suggest that FirstGroup fully intended to “successfully mobilise” and take over the West Coast mainline on 9 December. The firm said as much in its trading update. The transport group certainly gave no indication that the franchise win would later be cancelled in dramatic [...]
Richemont adds sparkle to its watches by snapping up VVSA October 2, 2012 RICHEMONT, the luxury goods group behind Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre and IWC, has snapped up Swiss watch parts maker Varin-Etampage and Varinor (VVSA) for an undisclosed sum. VVSA, a long-term partner of Richemont, makes metal parts for high-end watches and jewellery. Richemont said it would benefit from VVSA’s “established technical know-how and state-of-the-art equipment”. The company’s management [...]
Trading volumes at the London Metal Exchange hit record high October 2, 2012 THE LONDON Metal Exchange (LME) enjoyed its busiest ever month in September as trading volumes hit a record high of 14.09m lots, it was announced yesterday. The news will be welcomed by Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (HKEx), who agreed to pay $2.2bn (£1.4bn) for the 135-year-old market in June. It also revealed that [...]
