Find a holiday idyll with no flying required April 20, 2010 IT’S finally started: deluges of volcano-friendly holidays. Yesterday our inboxes were indundated with ways to get round the awful ash cloud. Certainly, if your far-flung trip has been postponed, holidaying in Britain need not be a trial. The UK?is packed with idyllic places to stay, from the cosy and rustic and the majestic and palatial, [...]
Blanc goes bland in the Square Mile April 19, 2010 Brasserie Blanc 60 Threadneedle Street, EC2R 8HP Tel: 020 7710 9441 Cost per person without wine: £26 IT has the name Raymond Blanc attached, but don’t be thinking Brasserie Blanc has anything to do with the French celebrity chef’s haute cuisine flagship, Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Oxfordshire. Brasserie Blanc is a chain of [...]
Black Swans back with a vengeance April 18, 2010 CHAOS theory reigns supreme. That is one of the most powerful lessons in life: unexpected events always tend to derail even the best and most carefully thought out plans. We have seen three major disruptions to the received wisdom in the past few days; all will have severe consequences. The first was the outcome of [...]
Sports Direct yet to agree Blacks deal March 29, 2010 SPORTS Direct will have to shelve its takeover bid for Blacks for six months if the two fail to agree on an offer price by Thursday. Its hopes of merging the retail giants have been put in jeopardy after claims that some key suppliers, including North Face, would not continue to work with Blacks if [...]
Petroceltic share placing raises £81m for exploration in North Africa and Italy March 29, 2010 IRISH oil and gas explorer Petroceltic will tap shareholders and several new investors for £81m to fund projects in Algeria and Italy. The dual Dublin and Aim-listed company announced a share placing at 12.75p per share yesterday, a modest discount to Friday’s closing price of 13p. Although the sum being raised is almost half the [...]
Games, guns and gyrating girls in Sin City March 7, 2010 FAHVE bucks? Girl, for five dollars yew can take as many pictures as yew want. Come on over, and get yo’ man over heyah too.” This was Elvis talking. Yes, Elvis. Tinted shades, jet-black jumpsuit, rhinestone belt, sideburns you could iron clothes on. Standing on a street corner. A few minutes previously, we’d been inhaling [...]
BUYING February 25, 2010 Camilla Dell MANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICK Q.Dear Camilla, I’m buying a property as an investment and want to split it up into three or four flats to rent out. What is the procedure and the order in which I need to do this? A.The first thing you need to consider is whether splitting the [...]
Doing God’s work in the City February 25, 2010 LLOYD Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, caused a stir when he said the bank was doing “God’s work”. Well, perhaps he should meet Mark Speeks, the managing partner and co-founder of Acuity Capital, a private equity firm based in the City, who is also an assistant priest at St Botolph’s church in Aldgate. [...]
RED DRESSES IN FOR SPRING February 14, 2010 LAST Friday was “wear red day” in the States, in support of the American Heart Association. Here in London, although red is a huge colour for spring, there appears to be some trepidation amongst City professionals about sporting it in the office. In the States, red has somewhat aggressive connotations if worn in interviews; here [...]
Dow hit by fears over sovereign debt February 4, 2010 THE Dow briefly fell below the crucial 10,000 mark yesterday as stocks suffered their worst losses in more than nine months. Escalating sovereign debt problems in Europe and an unexpected rise in jobless claims put investors on the defensive just ahead of Friday’s crucial payrolls report. Investors dumped banks and commodity-related shares and Wall Street’s [...]