SELLING March 4, 2010 Russell Hunt MANAGING DIRECTOR OF PROPERTY HUNT Q.Dear Russell, we are cash buyers but we keep losing out on houses. I thought cash buyers were supposed to have a better chance. Any advice? A.Buying your home is one of the biggest decisions that you ever have to make and it is also one of the [...]
Tough economic climate and fiscal laxity to keep pressure on sterling March 3, 2010 JANE FOLEY RESEARCH DIRECTOR, FOREX.COM IN CONTRAST to last month’s meeting, today’s decision by the Bank of England has not been billed as a headline event. February’s meeting had a much higher profile, thanks to its coincident timing with the quarterly inflation report, which gives the central bank a fresh set of growth and inflation [...]
Taylor Wimpey upbeat despite losses March 3, 2010 HOUSEBUILDER Taylor Wimpey has suggested that its prospects are improving despite posting sizeable full-year losses for 2009. The FTSE 250 company posted full-year losses of 640.6m, following on from a deficit of £1.97bn the previous year and saw its revenue slip to £2,595m from £3,467m in 2008, but said “improving conditions” had led to a [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING February 28, 2010 THE SUNDAYS The Sunday Telegraph NIKE BOSS MARK PARKER DEMANDS NEW RULES ON VALUING BUSINESS The global chief executive of Nike, one of the most powerful retail brands in the world, has said that companies will have to find more sophisticated ways of judging value and impact on the environment if they are to resist [...]
Portsmouth falls victim to Premiership excesses February 25, 2010 DEBT-RIDDEN Portsmouth will officially become the first Premier League club to go into administration today. Owner Balram Chainrai took the decision after failing to strike a deal with four potential buyers in time for the winding-up order in the High Court on Monday. Portsmouth will now be docked an automatic nine points – a move [...]
Fashion week is far from pointless February 25, 2010 ANOTHER fashion week has finished and London has gone back to its (slightly) less glamorous self. The international circus of celebrity will return to wherever it came from for the six-month hiatus before the next round, and Somerset House will once again be a genteel government office complex and art gallery. Every time fashion week [...]
Q&A PUBLIC SECTOR BIDS February 18, 2010 Q. What should I consider if I want to bid for work on a public sector project? A.The first thing to think about is whether a public sector contract is right for the size of your company, says Matthew Perkins, deputy regional manager for south-west London at Business Link, the government business resource body. Bidding [...]
Why every firm needs a Facebook February 11, 2010 BACK when they started out in the corporate world Mike Powell and Ken Yeadon can remember a time when computers were rare. That was back in the mid 1980s when they both started work in HSBC’s trading department. A quarter of a century later and things have changed. Now, through their private equity company Thematic [...]
Get into the foreign property game at a fraction of the cost February 11, 2010 FOR many people, owning a foreign property would be the ultimate luxury. However, dealing with local authorities, maintaining the place, or renting it out can turn a luxury into a time-consuming, costly hassle. And that assumes you can really afford the place of your dreams, rather than a flat in a high-rise overlooking a crowded [...]
UK AT RISK | THERE’S ROOM IN THE STY February 10, 2010 CHANCELLOR Alistair Darling might have hoped that the Greek sovereign debt crisis would draw attention away from the parlous state of Britain’s own public finances. He will have been sorely disappointed – the Eurozone’s troubles have only highlighted the problems facing other highly indebted countries such as the UK and the US. The ratings agencies [...]