Start-ups secure funding as recovery kicks in April 26, 2010 For those of us on the ground building businesses, a new reality is emerging as the recovery sets in. Ariadne has won funding for five companies in 2010 including Everyclick, which has secured a hefty sum from new and existing investors. Why are so many start-ups getting funded – in our portfolio and elsewhere – [...]
Tackling the budget deficit will be a hard pill to swallow post-election April 22, 2010 RESEARCH DIRECTOR, FOREX.COM JANE FOLEY ACCORDING to the minutes of the last Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting at the start of April, the Bank of England concluded that for many committee members, concerns about the outlook for the UK economy had eased. The market appears to agree – the consensus expectation is that first quarter [...]
WEE WILLIE BRUSHES UP ON BA’S PR STRATEGY April 19, 2010 THAT pesky cloud of Icelandic volcanic ash may have caused havoc among passengers and crippling losses to airlines, but at least there has been a silver lining for one man. “Wee” Willie Walsh, the chief executive of British Airways, has suffered something of a PR nightmare over the past year amid strikes and crisis-hit revenues, [...]
Labour and Liberals move to the left April 14, 2010 NEW Labour isn’t dead: about that Alistair Darling could not have been any more emphatic in his interview with City A.M. today. We asked him whether Labour’s manifesto – with its 50p tax, restrictions on hostile takeover bids, increases in regulation and no clear plan to reduce the size of the state – should be [...]
The biggest Mad Man in the world still retains a close eye for detail April 7, 2010 This downturn is evidently really beginning to get on the nerves of WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell. He says: “People’s expectations have shifted. Company profits were down 30 per cent in 2008, now that they were only down, say, 13 per cent last year, they are calling that good. But if profits keep falling [...]
The fund manager who swallowed New Star and is looking for more March 28, 2010 We are at the beginning of the end of the financial crisis, according to the chief executive of Henderson Global Investors. “It will be a very slow recovery throughout 2010,” says Andrew Formica, the 38-year-old boss of the UK’s third-largest listed fund manager, which boasts assets under management of £58.1bn. The confident Australian is sat [...]
CITY BROKER ISN’T JUST HORSING AROUND WITH NEW POLO VENTURE March 3, 2010 IT’S SET to be a good year for Daniel Fox-Davies, the jovial boss of City stockbroker Fox-Davies Capital. Foxy, you see, is a bit of a dark horse when it comes to his extra-curricular hobbies – along with running his oil and gas-focused brokerage, he spends much of his free time flying jets and helicopters, [...]
An MBA is the gateway to the international marketplace February 24, 2010 AN Australian-born executive based in London and married to a South African banker, Nick Kontopoulos could be seen as the very essence of today’s globe-trotting business internationalist. However it wasn’t until his MBA studies led him to China that he thought that he might end up living and working there. Kontopoulos, a marketing business developer [...]
Bailing out Greece is not the answer February 9, 2010 IT is now clear that Germany, the European Central Bank and others are seriously talking about bailing out Greece. The negotiations could still collapse; but there has been a significant shift over the past 24 hours, with a panicked European establishment increasingly desperate to salvage its beloved single currency. One option would be for Germany [...]
Don’t assume Pigs will be bailed out February 8, 2010 HISTORY is repeating itself – and much more quickly than we seem to realise. The consensus view appears to be that Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain – the PIGS – will by hook or by crook be given a bail-out if they need one, just as Dubai, RBS and AIG eventually were – and that [...]