Marathon effort for green pioneer February 18, 2010 TO DO this job, you must be an optimist first and foremost, says Steve Mahon, founder of Low Carbon Accelerator, the venture capital firm that specialises in green technology investment. Set up in October 2006, it was the first green technology fund to list on Aim. Attracting institutional investors was a lengthy battle: “The investment [...]
The return of the plain white shirt February 14, 2010 THE white shirt is to men what the little black dress is to women – it goes with anything, can be extremely formal or stylishly casual, and everyone has one. In fact, every chap should have several, since it’s back in fashion, particularly in the City. Eighteen months ago, when expressing brash confidence rather than [...]
Firth shines in fashionable drama February 11, 2010 Film A SINGLE MAN Cert: 12A Fashion designer – and world’s most stylish dude – Tom Ford makes his directorial debut with A Single Man, and boy won’t he let you forget it. An adaptation of a Christopher Isherwood novel about a day in the life of a college professor named George who is grieving [...]
Future is sweet for Nectar as it ranks top of the loyalty schemes February 7, 2010 NECTAR has become the country’s most popular loyalty scheme, with 16.8m subscribers. A staggering 50 per cent of households now swipe their Nectar card when shopping in stores and online and it has become more popular than both the Tesco Clubcard and the Boots Advantage card. Gwyn Burr, Sainsbury’s customer director, said: “Customers are increasingly [...]
Who can conquer Ireland to land the greatest prize? February 4, 2010 England Manager: Martin Johnson Captain: Steve Borthwick Last season: Italy (h) won 36-11; Wales (a) lost 15-23; Ireland (a) lost 13-14; France (h) won 34-10; Scotland (h) won 26-12 = 2nd. Where they stand: Endured a disappointing autumn international campaign when they lost to Australia and New Zealand and looked unconvincing in their narrow victory [...]
CADBURY’S CARR REFUSES TO COSY UP TO KRAFT PREDATOR ROSENFELD February 4, 2010 IRENE Rosenfeld hasn’t exactly offered herself readily to the cameras during her ultimately successful five-month pursuit of chocolatier Cadbury, though The Capitalist hears there was at least one photograph of herself that the Kraft boss would have liked as a memento to her victory. As the two companies’ representatives filed out of the offices of [...]
The A-Team meets James Bond in this gung-ho mercenary adventure February 3, 2010 FIRE FORCE BY MATT LYNN Headline, £12.99 by Jeremy Hazlehurst YOU’VE got to hand it to Matt Lynn, he can certainly write a first line. “Until you’ve sat down to a game of poker inside Africa’s most brutal jail, you don’t really know what it’s like to sweat,” begins his second novel. No man, surely, [...]
Youngman to join rival broker after WH Ireland row February 1, 2010 DAVID Youngman, the small cap finance veteran who quit stockbroker WH Ireland last year after a boardroom row, has resurfaced as head of corporate finance at Daniel Stewart’s Manchester office. Youngman, who previously held the same corporate finance role at WH Ireland, left the firm in May along with deputy chairman Laurie Beevers. The pair [...]
Ford is finally back to black January 28, 2010 FORD raced back to black as it announced full-year earnings of $2.7bn (£1.7bn) yesterday. The result is the first profit the troubled car maker has reported since 2005. The business now expects to make a make a “solid” profit over the next two years despite a slow recovery in US car sales. Revenue for the [...]
Ford goes into profit for first time in four years January 27, 2010 FORD has posted an annual profit for the first time in four years. The carmaker made $2.7bn (£1.7bn) in 2009 – compared with a loss of nearly $15bn in 2008. Ford said its return to profitability was in part due to cutting costs and reducing debt levels. The company’s workforce has been slashed from 89,000 [...]