Effects of West Coast fiasco will take years to put right October 7, 2012 OH, to have been a fly on the carriage wall of the Virgin Trains service to Birmingham yesterday. So many political problems to make the Tory faithful green around the gills, mixed in with the swaying of the high-speed Pendolinos and the pungent aroma of the onboard buffet bar. Also feeling a little travel sick [...]
Dividend pay abandoned by more FTSE firms October 7, 2012 THE number of non-dividend paying FTSE firms is creeping back up to historic highs with nearly 14 per cent of listed firms now turning their back on regular payouts, research revealed yesterday. Data from Absolute Strategy Research, a City research firm, shows 13.8 per cent of firms on the FTSE 350 index have shunned dividend [...]
Scardino steps down as vice chair of Nokia October 7, 2012 MARJORIE Scardino, the departing chief executive of Financial Times owner Pearson, is to step down from the board at Nokia after 11 years. Scardino, who will leave Pearson at the end of the year, has been a non-executive director at Nokia since 2001, and vice chair since 2007. She has taken the decision in order [...]
Wonga readies Newcastle sponsorship deal October 7, 2012 SHORT-TERM lending company Wonga.com, led by Errol Damelin, is close to sealing a shirt sponsorship deal with Premier League football club Newcastle United that would see it replace Virgin Money from the start of the 2013-14 football season. Wonga, which already sponsors Championship side Blackpool United and Scottish outfit Hearts, is not interested in a [...]
Proportion of households on benefits soars October 7, 2012 THE PROPORTION of UK households receiving benefits has soared over the past decade, data reveals today, as did the proportion receiving more benefits than they paid in tax. The number of non-retired households receiving any cash benefit barring child benefit rose from 40.3 per cent in the 2000-2001 tax year to 44.6 per cent in [...]
Bank paper suggests smaller banks should hold less capital October 7, 2012 REGULATIONS specifying banks’ capital ratios should be more generous to smaller players, a working paper from the Bank of England suggested yesterday. Bigger, more interconnected banks have a disproportionately large influence on the health of the financial sector, the three Bank economists said, implying they should face regulations requiring disproportionately large capital ratios. This would [...]
All Saints chairman fired by the firm’s private equity owners October 7, 2012 KEVIN Stanford, the chairman of All Saints fashion chain, has been fired from his role after a fall out with the group’s majority shareholders. Stanford was sacked about two weeks ago by Lion Capital, the private equity firm, which rescued the debt-laden retailer for an undisclosed sum last year. Lion Capital, which also owns American [...]
iPhone 5 supply threatened by Foxconn strikes October 7, 2012 FOXCONN workers went on strike over the weekend at one of the Chinese factories supplying Apple’s iPhone 5, in a blow to the US firm as it struggles to keep up with demand for the device. More than 200 workers at Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant refused to work on Friday, in the latest round of unrest [...]
Nutmeg: We will shake up banks October 7, 2012 INVESTMENT BANKS are stifling innovation and have failed to deliver the benefits of the digital revolution, the founder of a British online fund manager has claimed. Nick Hungerford, the chief executive and founder of Nutmeg, a personal portfolio manager promising to be the “Facebook of wealth management”, told City A.M. that major investment banks lack [...]
SLR Management splashes out on Australian mining adviser October 7, 2012 PRIVATE equity-backed environmental consultancy SLR Management has snapped up an Australian adviser to the coal mining industry, the firm is set to announce today. Oxford-based SLR is buying GSS Environmental, which counts BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata among its clients, for an undisclosed sum. It is SLR’s first acquisition since raising money for its [...]
