How Marks & Spark’s reputation helps to predict its share price July 7, 2008 Does it help M&S to be an iconic brand? It has huge traction in the public mind, which can amplify both its successes and its failures. When it does well, everyone notices – but when it reports disappointing results, and the share price plummets, the story is all over our TV screens. And that doesn’t [...]
Persimmon in mass job cull July 7, 2008 Persimmon, Britain’s most profitable housebuilder, will announce tomorrow that it is cutting 20 per cent of its workforce, in the latest mass cull to hit the beleaguered sector. Persimmon is expected to say it is making at least 1,000 redundancies in a trading update on Tuesday, as it attempts to reduce costs and ride out [...]
London nears fresh fall into bear territory July 7, 2008 The City is bracing itself for possible entry into bear market territory this week, after the FTSE fell 41.7 points to 5434.9 by midday on Friday, and saw the psychologically-important 5,400 level broken in the final hour. With the words “negative”, “topsy-turvy”, and “recession” dominating reports on the market at the end of last week, [...]
Berkeley pays bosses £60m July 7, 2008 Multi-Millionaire property entrepreneur Tony Pidgley and three of his fellow directors at housebuilder Berkeley Group are getting a £60m pay-out, it has emerged. Pidgley and the three other members of the management team will net around 7 per cent of the company, which is valued at around £770m. The pay-outs come at a time when [...]
Merrill eyes Bloomberg sale July 7, 2008 American investment bank Merrill Lynch is in negotiations to sell its 20 per cent stake in financial data and news firm Bloomberg, as it seeks to raise more cash to firm up its balance sheet. Talks with the firm’s founder and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg are still at an early stage, according to those [...]
Stuart Rose faces huge protest vote July 7, 2008 Up to 30 per cent of Marks & Spencer shareholders angry at Rose’s power grab Marks & Spencer is bracing itself for up to a third of its investors to abstain or vote against Sir Stuart Rose’s controversial plans to hold both chairman and chief executive positions at the retailer’s annual general meeting on Wednesday. [...]
Sugar for Mayor? July 4, 2008 If you thought the last London Mayoral elections were farcical, just wait for the next lot. Boris Johnson has only been in office for a matter of weeks, yet there is already speculation about who Labour might put up against the gaffe-prone oaf in May 2012. Two-term incumbent Ken Livingstone, who Johnson dethroned this year, [...]
Phoenix to rise to the occasion July 4, 2008 Tomorrow’s Coral-Eclipse looks an ultra competitive contest with no superstar entries like in the last two seasons, but two horses who look the type to have a very good second half of the season. Phoenix Tower is definitely the form pick with a very good second at Royal Ascot to Duke of Marmalade, while Mount [...]
Cash in on volatile financial markets July 4, 2008 More tips on how to succeed in financial betting At the core of speculation on the financial markets is a single premise – your opinion that the market will ‘do something’. The simple, fixed risk nature of fixed odds financial betting is such that you can never lose more than your stake, but has the [...]
Mykonos calls for it-boy who gave it all up July 4, 2008 He failed to buy the Groucho, but Benjamin Fry has no regrets, writes Timothy Barber Benjamin Fry, psychotherapist, TV self-help guru and author, has come a long way. He used to be Benji Fry, stalwart of a west London scene of ultra connected upstarts such as Tom Parker Bowles and Ben Elliot, who in the [...]
