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 [...]
General Atlantic snaps up a small stake in Markit January 27, 2010 MARKIT, a data provider and index administrator, said yesterday that private equity firm General Atlantic had agreed to take a minority stake in the company. General Atlantic is understood to have paid $250m (£154.5m) in exchange for a 7.5 per cent stake in the market-data firm. General Atlantic chief executive Bill Ford will join Markit’s [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING January 26, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES ATHENS INVITES BEIJING TO BUY BONDS Greece is wooing China to buy up to €25bn of government bonds, a move that underlines Beijing’s growing financial power, as Athens struggles to fund soaring public debt. Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank, has been promoting a Greek bond sale to Beijing and the State Administration [...]
Jaguar Land Rover chief to quit post January 25, 2010 THE boss of Jaguar Land Rover is quitting the Indian-owned luxury car manufacturer. Jaguar Land Rover yesterday said David Smith was stepping down as chief executive shortly and would be replaced by Ravi Kant, the vice chairman of Jaguar Land Rover’s parent company Tata Motors, until a permanent successor is announced. The firm did not say [...]