OFT levies 39.3m fine on recruiters September 30, 2009 SIX recruitment agencies have been fined for price fixing and forming a cartel, with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) slapping a penalty on market leader Hays equal to half its estimated 2009-10 net profit. The OFT imposed fines totalling £39.3m yesterday for breaching competition law. A week ago, the OFT handed out fines totalling [...]
Ernst &Young revenues rise despite crisis September 30, 2009 ERNST & YOUNG (E&Y), one of the Big Four accountancy firms, said it left its rivals in the dust in the 2008-9 year in terms of UK revenue growth. The smallest of the Big Four said UK revenues rose to £1.38bn – a 7.9 per cent gain on the £1.28bn revenues seen in the previous [...]
Harvey Nash profits halved September 30, 2009 RECRUITMENT and outsourcing firm Harvey Nash yesterday said its first-half pre-tax profits had fallen by more than 50 per cent as the economic downturn saw clients slash their demand for staff. Profits before tax fell to £1.8m, from £3.9m a year earlier, on flat revenues of £200m. The group said its UK revenue fell by [...]
Chevron’s boss to stand down September 30, 2009 CHEVRON’S chairman and chief executive, Dave O’Reilly is standing down a the end of the year to be replaced by John Watson, the oil group announced yesterday. Watson, who became vice chairman of the second biggest US oil company in April, has been at Chevron for 29 years. He has been the group’s chief financial [...]
LSE quits industry body to go it alone September 30, 2009 The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is quitting the industry’s main European association as it seeks a free hand to lobby regulators mulling a crackdown on off-exchange trading at banks and dark pools. The LSE – Europe’s biggest stock market – will leave the Federation of European Securities Exchanges (FESE), which has been influential in the [...]
Web spend is outstripping TV adverts September 30, 2009 SPENDING on internet advertising in the UK grew by 4.6 per cent in the first half of 2009, outstripping television ad spend for the first time ever. According to the biannual report from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), ad spend on the internet grew to £1.75bn, with the medium accounting for 23.5 per cent of [...]
CITY VIEWS: HAS MARKS & SPENCER LOST ITS SPARK UNDER THE STEWARDSHIP OF SIR STUART ROSE? September 30, 2009 STEPHEN FOSTER CHAPMAN BATES“It’s a bit dated, the sort of place I’d expect my Mum to go. There are so many brands around that it’s hard for them to compete. I would only go there for a suit, not casual clothes. I still think of it as being good quality, but they seem scared of [...]
Australia’s Macquarie to purchase Fox-Pitt Kelton September 30, 2009 AUSTRALIA’S biggest investment bank Macquarie will buy US firm Fox-Pitt Kelton for $130m (£81m) in a push to expand its presence in North America and Europe. As part of the deal, part of the cash consideration will be deferred over four years following financial closure, Macquarie said in a statement. The investment bank will also [...]
Boost to US hopes of an early exit from recession September 30, 2009 The US economy contracted in the second quarter more slowly than initially thought, but negative news on jobs and on manufacturing activity in the country’s Midwest region in September pointed to a patchy recovery from recession. GDP fell at a 0.7 per cent annual rate instead of the one per cent decline reported last month, [...]
Another senior Moody’s executive hits out at the firm’s credit ratings strategy September 30, 2009 THE former head of compliance overseeing Moody’s credit ratings business was routinely ignored when he warned that the firm was not properly monitoring municipal bond ratings, according to a source close to the executive. Scott McCleskey, who is due to testify at a US House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing, said high [...]
