Burberry in management shake-up February 7, 2013 Luxury retailer Burberry this morning unveiled a board shake-up that will replace its chief financial officer and create a new chief operating officer role. John Smith, former chief executive of BBC Worldwide, has been appointed to the newly-created chief operating officer position where he will help to drive Burberry’s presence in digital media and mobile [...]
Weak Europe rocks Vodafone February 7, 2013 Weak European markets hit Vodafone in the fourth quarter as organic service revenue sank 2.6 per cent. The worse-than-expected drop in the three months to December compares to the 1.4 per cent fall recorded in the second fall, the first drop since 2010. The telecoms provider was hit by customers making fewer calls in Italy [...]
Notes on a scandal February 6, 2013 RBS took a £390m fine for Libor fiddling yesterday after watchdogs found that 21 staff had colluded with rivals over four years to fix the key market interest rates for the benefit of their own financial positions. Traders offered each other steaks and sushi in exchange for entering false interest rates to drive the Japanese [...]
UK in line for fresh tax hit following 2015 election February 6, 2013 CHANCELLOR George Osborne may be forced to hit UK citizens with yet another swathe of taxes after the next election, in order to fill the hole in the country’s finances. Current budget plans imply total real term cuts of 33.2 per cent in unprotected departmental spending between the 2010-11 and 2017-18 fiscal years, the Institute [...]
Coalition mishandles its response to Libor and NHS scandals February 6, 2013 NO wonder trust is at a low ebb in Britain today. Two major institutions – RBS and the NHS – have been shown to have failed. We devote much of our front page to some of the shameful emails sent by the traders involved in the Libor rate-rigging scandal; this has been another disastrous day [...]
What the other papers say this morning February 6, 2013 FINANCIAL TIMES Buyout firms seek £10bn EE bid Buyout firms have accelerated talks with lenders to secure funding for possible £10bn bids for EE, the UK’s largest mobile phone operator, in what would be the biggest private equity-backed acquisition in Europe since the financial crisis. The efforts have picked up in intensity in the past [...]
Brits employ selves in dip February 6, 2013 SELF-EMPLOYMENT has boomed through the slow economic recovery, driven by an influx of middle-aged men, according to data out yesterday. Since 2008, 367,000 more UK residents have become self-employed, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, bringing the total to 4.2m, an all-time record. The average age of this 4.2m cohort is 47, the ONS [...]
Turner calls for money printing February 6, 2013 PRINTING money should not be taboo, outgoing City watchdog boss Lord Turner said last night, as it can be beneficial in small doses. The Bank of England currently boosts the money supply through buying gilts, with most economists holding that printing cash instead could lead to hyperinflation like in Zimbabwe or early-1920s Germany. But departing [...]
New owners of Virgin Media to avoid TV war February 6, 2013 VIRGIN Media’s new owners yesterday pledged business would continue as usual, despite the telecoms firm’s chief executive announcing he would step down. After signing a $23.3bn (£14.9bn) agreement to buy the company, bosses at Liberty Global played down suggestions of massive investments in TV rights that would heighten Virgin Media’s competition with Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB. [...]
Results that show why Malone made his move February 6, 2013 ANOTHER day older and deeper in debt: that’s Virgin Media, with its new soon-to-be-owner Liberty Global announcing a plan to add $3bn (£1.9bn) to its existing £5.723bn net debt pile. Overall, however, the deal makes a great deal of sense for the UK’s quadruple-play specialist, as I discussed yesterday. An understandable interest in the nuts [...]
