Unite Group launches retail bond November 21, 2012 Unite Group, the UK’s biggest student accommodation provider, yesterday become the latest firm to launch a retail bond. With £2,000 as the minimum investment, the bond pays a coupon rate of 6.125 per cent and matures on 12 June 2020. The group aims to raise £50 to £75m from the bond to fund expansion. Investec [...]
New chair for British Land as profits increase November 20, 2012 BRITISH Land, the UK’s second-largest property company by market value, said yesterday that its chairman will step down at the end of December, as it reported a solid growth in profits for the first half of the year. Underlying profit before tax at the real estate investment trust rose 3.8 per cent to £137m in [...]
Henderson sells £184m portfolio November 20, 2012 Henderson Global Investor has sold 24 remaining assets in its debt-laden CMBS Caspar regional property fund for £184m to buy-out firms Mountgrange and Patron Capital, the property asset manager announced yesterday. Mountgrange and Patron have in turn sold on seven of the warehouses and sites based in London and the south east, to CBRE Global [...]
Google is spared the public’s anger over UK tax spat November 20, 2012 LAST week executives from Amazon, Google and Starbucks appeared before the House of Commons public accounts committee to discuss the issue of tax avoidance, which led to some calls for consumers to boycott big brands that are accused of not paying their fair share. But how is brand perception actually impacted by these sort of [...]
Ocado delivers on its debts but profits aren’t in the bag November 19, 2012 BEFORE anyone gets too excited about Ocado’s share price rising by more than a fifth yesterday, the troubled online grocer is still trading at less than half its original float price of 180p, which was itself at the bottom of the hoped-for range back in 2010. Yesterday’s raising of £35.8m staved off Ocado’s most immediate [...]
Asda sales slow as it forecasts a bleak Christmas November 15, 2012 ASDA, the UK’s second largest supermarket, reported a slowdown in third quarter like-for-like sales growth yesterday and struck a sober note in its outlook on the Christmas quarter. Like-for-like sales rose 0.3 per cent in the three months to 30 September, down from 0.7 per cent in the previous quarter and 2.2 per cent in [...]
Sainsbury wins shoppers over with coupons November 14, 2012 J SAINSBURY boss Justin King said the supermarket’s Nectar data and coupon-at-till scheme would give it the edge over rivals ahead of another competitive christmas, as it reported a rise in half-year profit. Britain’s third largest supermarket beat forecasts with a five per cent rise in first-half profit to £373m, driven by convenience store growth [...]
Asian ambition risks a Prudential departure November 14, 2012 PRUDENTIAL boss Tidjane Thiam failed in his bid for AIG’s Asian insurance arm AIA in 2010, but yesterday’s third quarter numbers show the insurer has not turned its back on Asia’s opportunities. Far from it, with the Asian part of the business showing £828m new business profit in the year to date, as against £683m [...]
Profits and market share increase at Sainsbury’s November 14, 2012 Supermarket J Sainsbury this morning beat expectations by reporting pre-tax profit of £373m over the half year to September, up 5.4 per cent year on year. The supermarket chain’s market share ticked up to 16.7 per cent, the highest for almost a decade, following 31 consecutive quarters of like for like sales growth. J Sainsbury [...]
City Moves | Who’s switching jobs November 11, 2012 Old Burlington Investments Lawrence Hannah has been appointed business development manager at the investment firm. He joins from Caerus Wealth Management, where he was responsible for building its alternative tax products business. Hannah has also worked at Merrill Lynch. NYSE Euronext Demetria O’Sullivan has been appointed chief risk officer at the exchange’s new derivatives clearing [...]