Food spending falls for first time in 25 years as supermarkets wage price wars August 21, 2014 Spending on groceries has fallen for the first time since records began 25 years ago, laying bare the challenges facing Britain’s supermarkets in winning over cash-strapped shoppers. The amount spent in food stores fell 1.3 per cent in July compared with the same time last year, according to the Office for National Statistics, which put [...]
Analyst Views: What do you think of the Kazazakmys’ results and restructuring plans? August 21, 2014 AMOS FLETCHER | BARCLAYS Underlying results were good, as earnings beat our estimates by 21 per cent. The key driver of the beat was the gross cash cost performance, with impressive cost control. This came despite slightly lower-than-expected copper sales volumes. The emerging new company, KAZ Minerals, is an interesting investment proposition. CAILEY BARKER | [...]
Donaldson eyes Ryder Cup spot August 21, 2014 WELSHMAN Jamie Donaldson moved closer to sealing a European Ryder Cup place after posting a first round 66 to hold a one-shot lead in the Czech Masters yesterday. The 38-year-old holds the eighth of nine automatic places for Gleneagles due to his world points list position although victory in Prague would see him qualify via [...]
City Moves for 21 August 2014 | Who’s switching jobs August 20, 2014 Investec Specialist Bank The bank has announced the appointment of Stefan Szczurowski to its fund finance team. He has worked in Investec’s corporate and acquisition team in Australia since 2009. Szczurowski won a bronze rowing medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Tavistock The corporate and financial communications consultancy has announced the appointment of Matt [...]
City Moves for 19 August 2014 | Who’s switching jobs August 18, 2014 Turner & Townsend The programme management and construction consultancy has appointed Martin Greenhalf as director in its commercial development project management team. He joins from Sweett Group, where he was a director of project management. TSB Bank David Fenton has been appointed chief economist at the bank. He joins from RBS, where he was most [...]
Golf Comment: Heat is on as Ryder Cup deadline looms August 18, 2014 THE RYDER Cup is less than six weeks away and, more importantly for a handful of European players, there are just two more weeks of competition in which to secure guaranteed qualification. At least two of the nine automatic places, based on European and world points lists, are still up for grabs and there could [...]
Branches close as customers do banking online with 7bn transactions in 2013 August 17, 2014 Britons made almost 7bn online banking transactions last year, according to figures published today from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA). Internet banking use has surged by 40 per cent since 2009, the numbers show. But the rise of online banking has hastened the demise of the traditional bank branch. Over the same period, the number [...]
Top RAC staff in line for £300m listing windfall August 17, 2014 SENIOR executives at RAC are set to share a windfall of up to £300m if the breakdown recovery service decides to push ahead with its expected float next month. Plans to list on the London Stock Exchange would put the group’s top managers in line to benefit from their combined 15 per cent stake in [...]
Jeff Randall: From Sky soap box to Prudential sounding board August 17, 2014 So, Jeff Randall’s off the to the Pru. The veteran business hack, whose career has seen him go from The Telegraph, to the BBC to Sky (from where he stepped down earlier this year) is to become an adviser to Prudential boss Tidjane Thiam. Ah, I hear you say, another journo heads-off into a PR [...]
City Moves for 18 August 2014 | Who’s switching jobs August 17, 2014 CWPA City and Westminster Property Associations announced the appointment of a new executive director, Charles Begley, who will take up his post in October. An ex-journalist and comms expert, he is a senior partner at TTA Property, part of The Good Relations Group and the specialist corporate, consumer and stakeholder real estate arm of top [...]