Deezer secures £81m fundraising October 8, 2012 Music streaming service Deezer has secured $130m (£81m) in funding from Access Capital, the owner of Warner Music. The French company also said it had hit 2m paying subscribers a year after its worldwide launch. Unlike its major rival Spotify, Deezer said it has been profitable since 2010 thanks to “long and patient work with [...]
Big Yellow agrees debt restructure October 8, 2012 Storage firm Big Yellow yesterday said it had taken out a £190m debt facility which had seen it cut back its borrowing. The new debt, from Lloyds, HSBC and Santander, replaces a £225m facility provided by the same three banks and HSH Nordbank. Big Yellow reported a £35.6m loss last year due to writedowns linked [...]
Web game firm King.com lifted by Facebook October 8, 2012 BRITISH Facebook game developer King.com said yesterday it had seen “high double-digit growth” this year and that it has not been plagued by the same problems that have hit US rival Zynga in recent months. King.com, which has become Facebook’s second biggest game developer by users, has seen sales explode in the last year, chief [...]
Hotels and restaurants fight off insolvency but figures still rise October 8, 2012 THE NUMBER of hospitality and leisure businesses collapsing into insolvency fell 15 per cent in the third quarter compared with the same period last year, but it remains one of the worst hit sectors so far this year, according to figures released yesterday by PwC. Overall, there were 1,464 insolvencies in the hotel and leisure [...]
New handsets fail to lift HTC October 8, 2012 HTC posted a record profit drop yesterday, as the smartphone maker failed to keep up with Samsung and Apple over the summer. The Taiwanese firm said poor sales of its flagship handsets had led to a 79 per cent fall in profits, from T$18.7bn (£400m) to T$3.9bn in the last quarter. Turnover fell 23 per [...]
ITV takes over Finnish studio October 8, 2012 ITV yesterday announced it had acquired Finnish TV studio Tarinatalo, in what the company called “a key part of its transformation plan” as it bolsters its production arm. Tarinatalo, which co-produced the 2007 Eurovision contest, counts the Finnish version of Dragon’s Den among its shows. The deal, of undisclosed value, expands ITV’s footprint in Scandinavia [...]
Double celebration for Luxfer October 8, 2012 LUXFER Holdings, the Salford-based speciality metals group that last week became the latest high-flying UK company to list its shares on Wall Street, missed out on a chance to ring the opening bells at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). But it turns out the firm had a very good reason for opting out, as [...]
Win Champagne spot the city landmark October 8, 2012 THERE are only a couple of weeks to go until St John’s Ambulance’s flagship black-tie City quiz evening, The Game, on 24 October. All proceeds from The Game will support Teach the difference, SJA’s campaign to equip an entire generation with first aid skills. To book a table, please contact game@nhq.sja.org.uk or call 020 7324 [...]
UK retail sales bounced back in September October 8, 2012 BRITISH shops received a boost last month as retail sales sprung back to life after a miserable summer on the high street. Like-for-like sales shot up 1.5 per cent in September compared to the same time last year, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said this morning – the strongest increase so far in 2012. And [...]
China’s service sector rebounds yet World Bank cuts forecasts October 8, 2012 THE WORLD Bank slashed its estimates for Chinese GDP growth yesterday, yet separate business survey data showed a healthy rebound in the country’s service sector last month. HSBC’s latest purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China’s services industry climbed to 54.3 in September, up from 52 in August, it revealed yesterday. The higher the PMI score above [...]
