Walmart eyes Turkish group December 12, 2012 WALMART, the American retail giant which owns Asda in the UK, is is understood to be eyeing a takeover bid for Turkish supermarket group, Migros Ticaret. The retailer has been in talks with private equity group BC Partners about acquiring its 80 per cent stake in the Turkish chain. A source close to Walmart told [...]
Stagecoach JV hit by lawsuit over US buses December 12, 2012 THE NEW York attorney general has complained that Stagecoach’s tourist bus services are anti-competitive. Twin America, a joint venture half-owned by Stagecoach, has been hit with an antitrust lawsuit brought by attorney general Eric Schneiderman and the US Department of Justice. The lawsuit alleges that the hop-on hop-off bus tour company has raised prices 10 [...]
Watch out for shrinking margins December 12, 2012 OPTIMISTIC words from SuperGroup’s chief executive and co-founder Julian Dunkerton couldn’t stop yesterday’s interim results from sending the owner of the Superdry clothing brand down by almost seven per cent. The market’s reaction may seem harsh. A profit warning this April, blamed on bad arithmetic, knocked the share price down by nearly 40 per cent, [...]
High street hit as customers shop online December 12, 2012 CUSTOMERS are increasingly deserting the high street to do their Christmas shopping online, according to two data releases out this morning. Last week, retailers saw 1.7 per cent fewer customers entering their shops than last year, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC)-Springboard Footfall Monitor, out this morning. Shopping centres were hit especially hard with [...]
EU states’ debt equals €21,000 for each citizen December 12, 2012 GOVERNMENT debt across the European Union has bloated to the equivalent of around €21,000 (£16,972) per person, according to calculations released this morning by PwC. Total EU government debt has smashed past the €10 trillion mark, the big four audit group says, with the UK still in an unhealthy position. “At a time of slow [...]
Renault sells off its remaining stake in Volvo in £1.2bn deal December 12, 2012 FRENCH carmaker Renault yesterday said it was selling its remaining 6.5 per cent stake in truckmaker Volvo as it seeks to cut debt and boost its financial stability. The sale of the block of 138.6m Series A shares is being made via an accelerated book building, Renault said. Goldman Sachs is the sole bookrunner for [...]
Factory output plunges across the Eurozone December 12, 2012 EUROZONE industrial production collapsed in October, as the real economy tanked across the debt-stricken currency bloc. Seasonally-adjusted industrial output was 1.4 per cent down in just a month, the European statistics agency Eurostat said, meaning it was a full 3.6 per cent lower than a year before. Analysts said the data only added to the case [...]
Lower royalty rates chip away at Imagination December 12, 2012 THE RISE of cheap smartphones in emerging economies has led to a leap in royalty payments to chip designer Imagination Technologies. The company, which is locked in a bidding war to acquire US-based chip designer MIPS, has seen a 66 per cent year-on-year rise in royalty revenues in the last six months, it said yesterday. This [...]
That’s capitalism, says Google chair Schmidt in tax response December 12, 2012 GOOGLE’S chairman Eric Schmidt has defended his company against criticism of its tax affairs, saying: “It’s called capitalism”. “I am very proud of the structure we have set up. We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways,” he told Bloomberg. Google has been chastised by MPs for funneling $9.8bn (£6bn) [...]
London buses go contactless cards December 12, 2012 BUS passengers will from today be able to use contactless debit or credit cards to pay for journeys, as Transport for London begins its long-awaited rollout of the new payment method. Anyone with a contactless Visa, American Express or MasterCard should be able to tap the yellow Oyster pay point on the capital’s 8,500 buses, [...]
