Fare hike hits commuters January 3, 2011 COMMUTERS returning to work following the Christmas break have been hit with a fare hike of up to 13 per cent on annual rail season tickets. Rail passengers in London and the South East are facing increases as high as 12.8 per cent on some high-speed lines. Yearly tickets will increase across the country by [...]
JJB Sports to ask for £50m January 3, 2011 TROUBLED retailer JJB Sports is expected to try and raise a further £50m from shareholders, according to reports over the weekend. The company has already tapped investors for £31.5m and asked its lender Bank of Scotland to waive imminent covenant tests on a £25m loan. Shareholders including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Invesco Perpetual [...]
Next update set to show snow losses January 3, 2011 SEVERAL consumer bellwethers are due to reveal Christmas trading figures this week, with Next, Domino’s Pizza and Clinton Cards kicking off the first reporting season of the year. Clothing retailer Next is due to reveal in a trading update on Wednesday how snow disruption and consumer spending pressures have affected sales over the 24 weeks [...]
Pessimism reigns but FTSE is set to disagree January 3, 2011 So hello and welcome to 2011. On the first day of the year I spent a few hours watching the Back to the Future trilogy, and having seen the predictions for the months ahead I wondered if I shouldn’t jump in the DeLorean and fly straight to 2012, just in time for the Olympics. It’s [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS January 3, 2011 ALTERIAN Panmure Gordon’s latest “buy” rating for the marketing campaign management firm could stick, given the pace of the sector. The broker notes several “nifty’” new products launched by the company as well as operational momentum, at a time when mergers and acquisitions in the marketing software segment “continues apace”. MELROSE RESOURCES Collins Stewart rates [...]
PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE YEAR OF THE GRISLY KILLER POLICY RABBIT January 3, 2011 IT seems you can hardly call yourself an analyst these days without issuing a long list of annual predictions, and Societe Generale’s Michala Marcussen keenly threw his hat in the ring yesterday. But while his SocGen colleague Dylan Grice analyses “Popular Delusions” in his regular note, Marcussen went for the more unusual theme of “Policymakers and [...]
THE MONTH AHEAD in association with GFT January 3, 2011 COMPANY NEWS ● International seed and fertiliser company Monsanto publishes its first-quarter earnings on Thursday. ● Spread betting company IG Group publishes its interim results on 18 January. ● AstraZeneca, BSkyB, Charles Stanley and Vedanta Resources all publish earnings announcements on 27 January. ● Aluminium producer Alcoa traditionally kicks off the US’s fourth-quarter earnings season, publishing [...]
JJB in £30m fundraising plan December 24, 2010 JJB has has announced plans to raise £31.5m from shareholders, after issuing a warning it could breach the terms of a banking agreement. The struggling sports retailer said it was raising funds from major shareholders including Crystal Amber and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. It added that its lender, Bank of Scotland, had [...]
FTSE briefly breaks 6,000 mark in final pre-holiday trading December 23, 2010 LONDON’S last full trading day before Christmas saw the lead share index briefly break the symbolic 6,000 mark before finally closing at 5,982. Energy shares led the rally with BP up 1.4 per cent, underpinned by gains in the price of crude, which held around $90 (£58.30) a barrel and neared a two-year high. Some [...]
John Lewis sales up in Christmas run-in December 23, 2010 John Lewis sales were up 4.3 per cent from Sunday to Wednesday compared with the same period last year – with jewellery and watches helping to fuel the rise. The retailer has been giving regular trading updates which have been used as barometer for the performance of the sector. In beauty products Molton Brown’s “A [...]