Tax officials’ bonuses to be curbed after bumper 2010 January 23, 2011 BONUSES received by tax officials will be curbed in line with the rest of the public sector, following revelations that top HMRC staff received a bumper £13m bonus payment between them last year. The Revenue paid out almost £800,000 more on staff bonuses last year than it did in 2009, despite a blunder in the [...]
Growth to slip after record winter freeze January 23, 2011 THE coldest winter in 100 years may have contributed to a slowdown in economic growth in the three months to December, economists said ahead of official GDP figures released tomorrow. Experts have forecast an average 0.4 per cent GDP growth for the quarter, down from 0.7 per cent in the previous quarter. Heavy winter snow [...]
S&P 500 is on the edge of a painful correction January 23, 2011 THE SCOTTISH journalist Bertie Charles Forbes once said: “Optimism is the stuff of which American business success is fashioned”. He would have seen much to be happy about in the USA now. Though unemployment remains stubbornly high, American investors at least are seeing the bright side. The S&P 500 index of stocks has rallied by [...]
Nintendo leaps ahead with 3DS January 23, 2011 AFTER being surrounded by the latest in 3D technology for a week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the sight of two-dimensional images – a video of a puppy playing, for example, or a photograph of a friend’s newborn baby – now makes me uncontrollably and violently sick. Watching standard 2D TV is [...]
John Lewis in sharp sales rise January 21, 2011 Sales growth at department store chain John Lewis slowed dramatically last week as consumers tightened their belts after spending freely in the post-Christmas sales. The employee-owned retailer, which also runs upmarket grocery chain Waitrose, said on Friday department store sales increased 4.1 per cent to £55.8m in the week to January 15. Sales in the [...]
AB Foods set to hike prices as costs surge January 20, 2011 AB Foods warned yesterday that the spiralling price of wheat, cotton, and other commodities means that shoppers could face price hikes on basic shopping basket goods. The firm, which has brands including twinings Tea, Kingsmill bread and Silver Spoon sugar, said customers had already seen some rises and more were looming. Cost increases have also [...]
Enterprise sales hit by snow January 20, 2011 ENTERPRISE Inns said snow kept drinkers at home in December wiping up to £2m off its first-quarter profit. The group, which has around 6,800 pubs across Britain, said a cold snap of snow and ice leading up to Christmas caused a loss of earnings for many of its pub landlords. Net income at pubs where [...]
Strong Christmas drives second profit upgrade in two months at Laura Ashley January 20, 2011 FASHION and homewares retailer Laura Ashley issued its second profit upgrade in two months yesterday. The company said it was confident that full-year profits would be better than City forecasts. It said a strong performance over Christmas and early January means that the results will be “significantly higher than earlier expectations”. Analysts on average were [...]
Portmeirion to lift sales to new record of £50m January 20, 2011 BRITISH pottery manufacturer Portmeirion yesterday said annual sales will top £50m for the first time after a particularly strong Christmas. More than £13m of the sales come from Spode and Royal Worcester which were bought from the liquidator two years ago. Chairman Dick Steele said much of the growth came from new designs on old [...]
Old handsets hit profits at Sony Ericsson January 20, 2011 WORLD NUMBER five mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson posted lower than expected fourth-quarter pre-tax profit yesterday, and said it saw only modest growth in the handset market this year. Sony Ericsson posted pre-tax profit of €35m (£29.7m) on sales of €1.53bn. Analysts had forecast a pre-tax profit of €79.7m and sales of €1.82bn. Sony Ericsson [...]