City rents up for first time since 2007 January 10, 2010 CITY office rents rose for the first time in three years at the end of 2009, boosting confidence that office rents have bottomed out. A report from Cushman & Wakefield reveals 41 per cent of the year’s total take-up of office space took place in the last quarter of 2009. The take-up of 2.6m sq [...]
Balanced debate is needed on future of banking January 10, 2010 As people from across the City brave the wintry conditions let us hope that policy makers can help provide a brighter forecast for the financial services industry over the coming year. The past 12 months have seen the business environment in a state of almost constant flux. A series of measures – most notably the [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS January 10, 2010 Office of Fair Trading The consumer watchdog has appointed Sheldon Mills, a senior associate at law firm SJ Berwin, as its new director of mergers, effective from 15 February. Mills joined SJ Berwin in 2006 from rival Jones Day. Simon Holmes, head of EU and competition at SJ Berwin, said: “While we will miss him, [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 10, 2010 TED BAKER Singer Capital maintains a “buy” rating for Ted Baker after strong trading from 1 November to 24 December. Retail sales growth for this period was 19.1 per cent and trading was up 14.3 per cent year-on-year. It says Ted Baker’s collections are doing well and has revised its target price from 505p to [...]
UBS whistleblower begins jail sentence January 10, 2010 The chief whistleblower in the UBS tax secrecy probe has entered prison to serve a sentence he considered unfair, hours after a Swiss court ruled the bank should not have been forced to turn over client files to investigators. Bradley Birkenfeld, a former UBS banker, entered a federal prison in Pennsylvania to serve a 40-month [...]
E-book readers, 3D TVs and tablet PCs compete to be top dog of 2010 January 10, 2010 HYPE and prototypes dominated the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last week. From the Ford car that lets you send Twitter messages while driving, to the scuba diving mask that can shoot high definition video at depths of 130 feet, the vast majority of products on display will not hit the mainstream. The [...]
New Year has positive start with surge on stocks January 10, 2010 Stocks have begun 2010 with a bullish surge, and even after Friday’s employment data from the US revealed a surprising drop for December, we should see a broad appetite for risk get us off to a positive start to this week. GFT is calling the UK’s FTSE 100 index to open up 11 points at [...]
WEEK AHEAD ON WALL STREET January 10, 2010 US stocks could be in for a bumpy ride this week as three Dow components kick off the quarterly earnings reporting season, with investors clamoring for reassurances on future profits. While the latest earnings are widely expected to show a sharp improvement compared with the abysmal 2008 fourth quarter, the stock market could still be [...]
Brown drags down Labour’s election chances as punters look to Lib Dems January 10, 2010 RIGHT at the height of the aborted coup attempt by Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt last week, a Labour local council leader went on the radio and said that the leadership of the party is not an issue. Even if Jesus Christ came back and took over, he said, some people would never vote for [...]
Retail is a sell as customers desert the UK’s high streets January 10, 2010 THE BRITS lived up to their reputation as a nation of spenders and splashed their cash with abandon over the festive period. Major retailers swept up and some, like fashion chain Ted Baker, saw sales rise 20 per cent in the latter part of 2009. John Lewis, Next, Marks & Spencer and J Sainsbury also [...]
