BT misses out on £500m deal August 5, 2014 BRITISH Telecom (BT) has been passed over for a lucrative government communications contract, worth up to £500m, to upgrade the network used by the emergency services. BT was bidding to supply police, fire and ambulance workers with telecoms services for the next seven years, and building and maintaining the network’s sites for 15 years. Incumbent [...]
Sir Mike Rake in overdrive to chair roadside recovery firm RAC August 4, 2014 CBI president Sir Mike Rake is the frontrunner to become chairman of the RAC breakdown recovery service. The deputy chairman of Barclays is in talks for the role, ahead of the RAC’s potential £2bn stock market listing, according to Sky News. The breakdown service, owned by private equity group Carlyle, is expected to announce its [...]
BT share price creeps up as demand for fibre drives growth July 31, 2014 BT posted better-than-expected first quarter results yesterday on the back of growing demand for fibre. However, it received a tepid 0.15 per cent share price rise as investors waited to see how the Bo bets on sport and mobile play out. Revenue at the group rose just 0.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis to [...]
Sky Europe fails to find support for takeover bid July 29, 2014 BSkyB could find itself struggling to persuade Sky Deutschland’s investors to tender their shares as part of its £4.9bn Sky Europe takeover deal, according to the German broadcaster’s largest independent shareholder. Crispin Odey, who controls an eight per cent stake in Sky Deutschland through his hedge fund Odey Asset Management, said he would not accept [...]
City Moves for 29 July 2014 | Who’s switching jobs July 28, 2014 Lowendalmasaï Francis Mainoo has been appointed UK head of corporate development at the enterprise cost consultancy. He was previously head of London business development at Grant Thornton, and Mainoo has also held positions at Merrill Lynch and EY. Results International The M&A adviser to the marketing services, technology, and healthcare sectors has announced the promotion [...]
There is market failure at the heart of the City: The lack of superfast broadband July 27, 2014 Information technology has revolutionised the way that business is done in the City over recent decades. Cross border transactions are now completed with a click of a button. New models of finance such as crowdfunding are increasingly popular. Smartphones and cloud computing are making remote working a reality. These developments are reshaping the way that [...]
Sky Europe: What will BSkyB’s new TV empire look like? July 25, 2014 Sky Europe, as BSkyB has now been dubbed after buying up its Italian and German counterparts for between £5bn and £7bn, will span six countries and reach 20 million customers. With the purchase, total revenue across the new company will exceed the £10bn mark, largely driven by UK operations, and “synergies” as they say (read [...]
BSkyB share price slides on £5.3bn deal for Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia July 25, 2014 BSkyB's share price opened 3 per cent lower this morning after announcing a long-awaited £5.3bn deal to acquire European pay TV operators Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia from Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox, creating one of the biggest pay TV operators in Europe. BSkyB has offered £2.9bn in cash for 21st Century Fox’s 57.4 per [...]
Sky’s European merger to start in coming days July 23, 2014 BSKYB is expected to announce a multi-billion pound deal tomorrow to take over its sister companies in Italy and Germany, creating a new pay-TV empire in Europe. The so-called Sky Europe deal will see BSkyB, Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia combined to create one of Europe’s largest pay-TV operators, with over 19m subscribers across the [...]
TalkTalk retains TV crown as its user base soars July 23, 2014 TALKTALK’S YouView TV offering continues to outpace the growth of both BT’s and Sky’s TV services, adding 185,000 subscribers in the first quarter and taking its TV customer base to more than 1.1m. The FTSE 250-listed firm reported its sixth consecutive quarter of year-on-year revenue growth during the three months to 30 June, with total [...]