Investors back BSkyB despite drop in profits January 30, 2014 INVESTORS remained confident in BSkyB yesterday, despite a 18 per cent drop in half year profits, as Britain’s biggest pay-TV broadcaster added over 100,000 new customers during its second quarter. Shares in Sky closed up 4.4 per cent on the results, which included news of a new deal with HBO to secure exclusive access to [...]
Sponsors line up to steal Barclays’ Premier crown January 27, 2014 THE PREMIER League is bracing itself for a sponsorship bidding war if Barclays decides to pull out of the deal next year, it emerged yesterday. The high street lender, which has sponsored the league since 2001, is mulling plans to end the £40m a year deal when the rights come up for renewal in 2015. [...]
Bottom Line: BSkyB’s forecast still uncertain January 26, 2014 WHILE headlines surrounding BSkyB’s second quarter results on Thursday will certainly centre around an expected drop in profits – which analysts say could be as much as 10 per cent – the escalating cost of sports rights and the uncertainty of hanging on to the most precious of those rights continues to cast a shadow [...]
London Report: Growth figures set to show UK’s strong recovery January 26, 2014 GROWTH figures for the fourth quarter are expected to give further proof of Britain’s booming recovery. Economists predict expansion of 0.8 per cent in the final three months – giving the UK its strongest yearly growth since 2007. Jonathan Loynes, of Capital economics, said: “We think that the preliminary estimate of GDP in the fourth [...]
5 big things we’ve learned from tech leaders at Davos January 23, 2014 From “The New Digital Context” discussion at Davos yesterday 1. The Internet of Things will be worth $19 trillionCisco chief executive John Chambers said that he expects the market of internet connected devices – excluding PCs, tablets and laptops – to be worth an incredible $19 trillion by 2024. 2. PCs are being left behind [...]
Fastest internet connection ever recorded in UK January 22, 2014 THE FASTEST ever broadband speed has been achieved during a test in London by BT and Alcatel-Lucent. The joint team said speeds of 1.4 terabits per second were achieved during the test on a 255 mile link between the BT tower in central London and Ipswich – enough to send 44 uncompressed HD films in [...]
Best of the Brokers for 23 January 2014 January 22, 2014 To appear in Best of the Brokers, email your research to notes@cityam.com MICRO FOCUS INTERNATIONAL Panmure Gordon keeps the IT group at a “buy” rating with a target of 851p. The broker says Micro Focus is “sailing along nicely”, with a solid 10.1 per cent dividend yield, and that investors should take advantage of a [...]
BT breaks record for fastest ever broadband January 22, 2014 Alcatel-Lucent and BT have achieved the fastest ever broadband speeds in real world conditions. The speeds of 1.4 terabits (Tbps) per second were recorded in a field test conducted on a 255 mile fibre cable between the BT tower and Ipswich. The trial recorded spectral efficiency of 5.7 bits per second per Hertz. This is [...]
Vodafone and Sky in deal talks January 20, 2014 VODAFONE and Sky are holding high-level discussions on how the two companies could collaborate in order to curb BT’s growing reach in the broadband sector. The two firms have discussed options including a deal on Sky’s sports and movies channels or collaborating on a broadband service, people aware of the discussions told City AM. However [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 17 January 2014 January 16, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES EE float put on hold by owners The flotation of EE, Britain’s largest mobile operator, has been put on hold by Orange and Deutsche Telekom, after the joint owners concluded they would secure a higher valuation for the business when its 4G telephone services take off. Orange and Deutsche Telekom – which has [...]