Smiths News rejuvenation plan bears fruit as turnover jumps January 15, 2013 SALES at newspaper and magazine distributor Smiths News have risen two per cent in the period since August, mainly due to the firm’s growing education division, the company said yesterday. Last year’s £44m acquisition of stationery supplier The Consortium, described by Smiths News chief executive Mark Cashmore as “transformational”, was a significant driver of revenue [...]
PPR snaps up Kane January 15, 2013 FRENCH luxury group PPR has bought a 51 per cent stake in British designer label Christopher Kane for an undisclosed sum. Christopher Kane (pictured right with model Alexa Chung) is a Scottish-born designer known for his modern designs and digital prints. He set up his label in 2004. PPR, which owns stakes in brands including [...]
WANdisco bookings leap January 15, 2013 Newly-listed British software company WANdisco said that it had seen a 76 per cent increase in bookings in the final quarter of last year. The firm’s technology, which allows staff and companies across the world to collaborate, has seen orders from Apple, Cisco and Fujitsu. WANdisco said it reached record bookings of $2.5m (£1.55m) during [...]
Igas raises £23m to search for shale January 15, 2013 Exploration firm Igas said yesterday it has raised £23m via a placing to help it look for shale gas. The placing was priced at 95p per share, around a 17 per cent discount to its closing price on Monday. The company said around £15m of the proceeds of its placing would be used to drill [...]
H&M sales drop less than expected January 15, 2013 H&M, the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, yesterday posted a smaller-than-expected two per cent drop in December sales at stores open a year or more. Total sales in December, the first month of the Swedish budget apparel firm’s fiscal year, were up eight per cent from a year earlier in local currencies, beating a forecast for [...]
Germany joins the Eurozone’s economic rout January 15, 2013 THE GERMAN economy contracted in the final quarter of 2012, official figures estimated yesterday, dealing a body blow to the Eurozone as its biggest and strongest member contributed to the recession afflicting the currency area. And inflation in the leading nation edged up again in December, further reducing the chances of the European Central Bank [...]
Fitch warns bank cost cutting is here to stay for years to come January 15, 2013 THE JOBS bloodbath in the City is not the end of banks’ efforts to tighten their belts, credit ratings agency Fitch warned yesterday, arguing that profitability will never return to pre-crisis levels. With challenges from the Eurozone crisis and a wave of new regulation hitting the industry, revenues will remain under pressure while costs will [...]
Eurozone trade figures a rare glimmer of hope for the bloc January 15, 2013 A SEEMINGLY unbroken spate of gloomy Eurozone data was yesterday broken by figures showing the currency bloc had expanded its trade surplus during November. The beleaguered currency area sold €13.7bn (£11.4bn) more to the rest of the world than it bought, Eurostat revealed, beating the €9.3bn surplus it achieved in October, and the €4.9bn seen one [...]
November saw accelerating house prices January 15, 2013 THE HOUSING market heated up in November, according to the most comprehensive official data, released yesterday. The Office for National Statistics’ house price index climbed 2.1 per cent in the 12 months to November 2012, up from the 1.5 per cent growth recorded in the year to October. This overall acceleration was driven by soaring London prices, [...]
Public sector loath to build link between performance and pay January 15, 2013 REFORMING the public sector could be compromised if state employees cannot be convinced that their pay should reflect how well they do their job, a human relations body said this morning. Only 36 per cent of public staff came out in favour of performance-related pay in a survey released this morning, carried out by the Chartered [...]
