Roast still does British cuisine (pretty) well July 2, 2012 RESTAURANT ROAST The Floral Hall, Stoney Street, SE1 1TL Tel: 0845 034 7300 FOOD *** SERVICE **** ATMOSPHERE *** Cost per person without wine: £45 Roast has been around for six years. There was a time when it was one of the foodiest restaurants in London, by which I mean the sort of place those [...]
Scandal is devastating blow to every bank July 1, 2012 IN THE bad old days of 2007 and 2008, at 11am each day, we’d wait with mounting anticipation for the London Interbank Offer Rate (Libor). Queues formed outside branches of Northern Rock, HBOS, RBS and Lloyds teetered on the edge of unsustainability, and we (foolishly) looked to Libor to tell us quite how bad things [...]
Dixons plans to shut 40 shops as profits sink June 21, 2012 THE CHIEF executive of Dixons Retail said the group is planning to axe a further 40 stores on UK high streets as it reported a 17 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to £70.8m. Sebastian James, who replaced John Browett in February, said he intends to trim down its estate of 557 shops to about [...]
How a red tie curries favour at Santander June 21, 2012 The men in red ties appeared to have taken over the Ladies’ Smoking Room at the St Pancras Renaissance hotel the other evening as Santander UK hosted its very pleasant summer drinks party. All the Santander men present wore red ties, although a spokesman yesterday said there had been no order to do so. The [...]
Obama is banking on Latino votes but the economy is the issue that unites June 20, 2012 THOSE expecting Barack Obama to provide a rousing campaign speech in Ohio were left disappointed. Instead, the President decided to make headlines the following day, issuing an executive order halting the deportation of illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria. It’s a move that may well have reinvigorated the President’s re-election prospects. Immigration is one of [...]
Olympic pie and mash for £8 as London Games menu revealed May 30, 2012 LONDON 2012 spectators will be charged £8 for fish and chips or pie and mash at this summer’s Olympic Games, with a 500m bottle of Coca-Cola to wash it down costing £2.30. The most expensive dishes on sale to the public will be the Singapore noodles and the lamb curry with rice, which are both [...]
Ex-Dixons boss lands £36m for joining Apple May 27, 2012 JOHN BROWETT, the former boss of Dixons, is to receive a $56m (£36m) golden hello from Apple for taking charge of the tech giant’s network of stores around the world. Browett, who has been at the helm of the struggling British electronics group since 2007, moved to California last month after he was poached by [...]
Dixons on track to make £160m bond repayment May 25, 2012 Europe’s second-biggest electrical goods retailer, said it was well placed to make a crucial £160m bond repayment this year and had agreed a new 300 million pound banking facility. Shares in the firm, which trades as Currys and PC World in the UK, rose seven per cent after it said it was on course to [...]
Strange but good: a slice of Asia in Alicante May 13, 2012 My friend Jo and I did not feel we were en route anywhere nice one recent Friday morning. We were on an EasyJet flight to Alicante, surrounded by stags roaring for more Stella and Jack Daniels. Once in Alicante, a people carrier drove us through a parched landscape that looked a little worse for wear, [...]
Martin Currie fined £8.6m in US and UK May 10, 2012 REGULATORS in Britain and the US have slapped fines worth £8.6m on asset manager Martin Currie for the way it handled a conflict of interest. The Financial Services Authority handed Currie a £3.5m penalty, its largest ever in a conflict of interest case, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission dished out a £5.1m fine [...]