Retailers close 20 shops a day as value chains take their place October 17, 2012 BRITISH retailers closed more stores than they opened in the first half of the year, with around 20 shops a day pulling down their shutters, a study has revealed. The report, by PwC and the Local Data Company, examined 500 town centres in the UK and found toy shops, clothes and furniture retailers, jewellers, card [...]
20 Finsbury circus sold to Japanese firm October 17, 2012 THE CITY of London Corporation said yesterday it has sold 20 Finsbury Circus to NTT Urban Development, the property arm of Japanese telecoms firm Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corporation for £42.5m. The building is let to Deutsche Bank until 2015.
Exxon Mobil buys Celtic for $2.6bn October 17, 2012 Exxon Mobil agreed yesterday to buy Celtic Exploration for C$2.6bn (£1.6bn), as the world’s largest publicly traded energy company looks to raise its presence in some of Western Canada’s most promising shale oil and gas regions. Exxon said its Canadian subsidiary, ExxonMobil Canada, will pay C$24.50 for each share of Celtic, a 35 per cent [...]
MPs to examine Starbucks tax October 17, 2012 Two parliamentary committees are due to quiz tax officials about how Starbucks was able to avoid paying tax on £1.2bn of sales since 2009. MPs said reports that showed Starbucks had been telling investors its UK unit was highly profitable while telling UK authorities the unit was loss making, and so not liable for tax, [...]
Manchester bids for Stansted October 17, 2012 Manchester Airports Group (MAG) yesterday confirmed that it has teamed up with infrastructure specialist Industry Funds Management to make a takeover bid for Stansted Airport. Final bids are due in next week for Stansted, which was put on the block by BAA after a competition ruling. MAG chief executive Charlie Cornish said his firm’s track [...]
Diageo gets lift from emerging markets and US October 17, 2012 DIAGEO yesterday posted a five per cent jump in underlying sales driven by demand for spirits such as Smirnoff vodka in the US and strong sales of scotch in emerging markets like China. The drinks giant said net sales in North America, which accounts for a third of its sales, rose six per cent in [...]
Ebay revenues jump 15 per cent October 17, 2012 EBAY last night announced that revenues grew 15 per cent in the last quarter to $3.4bn (£2.1bn), producing profits of $718m. The firm’s online auction site and PayPal payment service continue to perform well but chief executive John Donahoe (pictured) is branching out into new services, such as providing technical support for purchases.
888 hits jackpot thanks to poker growth in Spain October 17, 2012 888 HOLDINGS has reaped the rewards from an ambitious marketing campaign and expansion in the newly regulated Spanish gaming market, the company said yesterday, leading it to better than expected sales. The online poker and casino operator said turnover had jumped seven per cent year-on-year in the quarter to October. While growth in casino gaming [...]
Crimson Tide announces mobile software tie-up with Microsoft October 17, 2012 MOBILE software company Crimson Tide yesterday signed a deal with Microsoft to use the tech giant’s cloud-based infrastructure. Crimson Tide, which develops and operates the mpro smartphone app, said the agreement would “provide current and future customers with the most secure, reliable and robust enterprise application available”. Microsoft’s cloud platform, Windows Azure, allows companies to [...]
Marketing spend suffers worst fall for three years October 17, 2012 MARKETING budgets took their biggest hit in three years in the last quarter amid shrinking business confidence, new data released today shows. Statistics from Markit’s influential IPA Bellwether survey show that budgets shrank for the second successive quarter in the three months to October, with 23 per cent of companies saying budgets had contracted. Just [...]
