Picklive IPO: Fantasy football firm plans £10m Aim float November 3, 2014 Fantasy sports operator Picklive will announce plans this morning to raise £5m through a listing on London’s Alternative Investment Market (Aim) that will value the firm at £10m. Picklive’s fantasy games cover football, baseball and American football where players pick and bet on a team based on real-life players, get points based on player’s performance [...]
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks out: I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me October 30, 2014 Apple chief executive Tim Cook made history yesterday when the 16-year veteran of the world’s most valuable publicly-listed company announced he was proud to be gay. In a letter to Bloomberg Businessweek, Cook wrote: “If hearing that the chief executive of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he [...]
Greene King has until Tuesday to clinch £723m Spirit Pub takeover October 30, 2014 SPIRIT Pub has agreed to extend the deadline until 4 November for a £723.3m takeover offer from brewer and pub owner Greene King. The deadline extension, which was due to expire yesterday, will “enable the parties to conclude their ongoing discussions”, Spirit said yesterday. Spirit Pub was spun out of Punch Taverns in 2011 and [...]
BT’s broadband growth slows as market heats up October 30, 2014 BROADBAND customer growth helped boost BT’s profits 13 per cent in the second quarter as the former state monopoly’s free BT Sport offering continued to win customers for the FTSE 100-listed firm. Despite the growth, BT said it added just 88,000 new retail broadband customers in the quarter, 48 per cent of the net new [...]
Samsung share price up but electronics firm seeks change in tactics as profits drop October 30, 2014 Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer by sales, posted disappointing third-quarter results yesterday showing profits down 60.1 per cent to 4.1 trillion won (£2.4bn) in the three months to the end of September. The South Korean firm, whose share of the smartphone market declined for the third straight quarter, said it planned to focus [...]
Seedrs swoops for US firm ahead of expected market expansion October 30, 2014 SEEDRS, the London-based equity crowdfunding service, says it is planning to expand into the US early next year after acquiring California-based Junction Investments yesterday. The firm, which recently completed its largest ever funding with more than 1,400 investors putting a combined £4m into the publicly-listed English winemaker Chapel Down, said the move would help it [...]
Time Warner Cable subscribers tune out ahead of Comcast deal October 30, 2014 US BROADBAND titan Time Warner Cable lost more video subscribers than analysts had expected in the third quarter as more customers opted for internet streaming services offered by rivals such as Netflix. The second largest US cable TV operator lost a net 184,000 household video customers in the three months to 30 September. The decline [...]
UK now eighth best country for Doing Business says World Bank October 29, 2014 The United Kingdom has become an easier place to do business over the past year with reforms to tax registration and reducing corporate income tax, moving it from tenth to eighth in the World Bank’s annual Doing Business survey. While Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, Korea, Norway and the US all rank above the [...]
Warm weather leaves Next feeling the heat October 29, 2014 HIGH street retailers saw shares hit yesterday after Next warned its profits would slip lower due to the “unseasonably warm” October weather that impacted its winter clothing sales. Next said third quarter sales were up 5.4 per cent, almost half the 10 per cent expected, knocking shares as much as three per cent during early [...]
Magners owner defends Spirit bid as profits fall October 29, 2014 DUBLIN-BASED C&C Group continued to see its share price tumble yesterday as it defended its bid to buy Spirit Pubs. The company argued that it needs greater scale to battle competition in England as its profits dropped sharply. Shares fell 7.8 per cent to €3.39, down nearly 15 per cent since C&C confirmed it had [...]
