It can’t come soon enough. Welcome to the new season August 16, 2012 There’s been too much written since the end of the Olympics comparing the (admittedly inspiring) event with the oncoming football season, most of which maintained that football stars are poor role models, football fans are foul-mouthed and more generally that football pales in comparison with the great sporting drama that we witnessed early this month [...]
Stelios plans fresh pressure on easyJet to sack chair Sir Michael August 12, 2012 EASYJET founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou is today expected to lose a vote to oust chairman Sir Michael Rake – but he plans to continue in his efforts to remove him. The tycoon will not attend the shareholder meeting he called, but is understood to have drawn up a list of questions for the board on [...]
BT staff receive £160m payout August 9, 2012 THOUSANDS of staff at BT pocketed thousands of pounds in payouts yesterday as the telecoms operator’s three-year share scheme matured, leaving workers with an average of £8,000 each. Twenty thousand employees – a third of total staff – enrolled in the scheme when BT’s share price was half as high as yesterday’s £2.16. They took [...]
Standard Chartered lifts the FTSE in Olympic-thinned trading session August 9, 2012 Banking stocks lifted the benchmark FTSE- 00 to its best finish since early April yesterday, led by a resurgent Standard Chartered Bank. Investors were impressed with chief executive Peter Sands’ robust defense of allegations of malfeance lodged by US regulators, and pushed the shares 3.6 per cent higher. However RBS bucked the trend, sliding 1.3 per [...]
Mining gains prop up FTSE August 9, 2012 Gains in heavyweight miners kept Britain’s main share index flat this morning, as solid results from Randgold Resources and expectations of fresh stimulus measures from China propped up the equity markets. The FTSE 100 was down 0.08 per cent, as Randgold rose 3.1 per cent after reporting a 10 per cent rise in second-quarter profit. [...]
Sky appeal on sports upheld August 8, 2012 SKY could be free to charge its rivals higher prices for its sports channels after winning a competition appeal against Ofcom yesterday. The competition appeals tribunal found the regulator’s concerns over Sky’s dominance to be “unfounded”, paving the way for rules to be lifted on the amount Virgin Media and BT pay for Sky Sports [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS August 6, 2012 Riverview Law Paul Bird has been appointed finance director at the law firm. He joins from Pearson Education, where he was finance director and company secretary at its subsidiary, Education Development International. UBS Global Asset Management Stephen Hutton has been appointed head of UK wholesale at the asset management firm. He joins from Zurich Intermediary, [...]
Sky dominance not a problem says watchdog August 2, 2012 SKY’S exclusive movie rights do not create a monopoly in the pay-TV market, the government’s media watchdog ruled yesterday, in a major victory for the broadcaster. Despite Sky enjoying special deals with major Hollywood studios, the arrival of online streaming services Netflix and Lovefilm into the market has loosened Sky’s grip, the competition commission declared. [...]
BSkyB cleared on pay-TV movie dominance August 2, 2012 Broadcaster BSkyB’s strong position in movies does not adversely affect Britain’s pay-TV retail market, a competition watchdog said this morning, pointing to increased choice with the arrival of new entrants Lovefilm and Netflix. “Sky Movies, which currently offers the first pay movies of all the big Hollywood studios, is not a sufficient driver of subscribers’ [...]
CWW reshuffle from Vodafone July 30, 2012 VODAFONE has replaced top Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) executives with its own following its £1bn purchase of the telecoms operator. Chief executive Gavin Darby has stepped down, with the head of Vodafone’s global enterprise division Nick Jeffery taking over. Darby will stay at CWW until October as Vodafone integrates the two firms’ technologies. Vodafone completed [...]