Q&A: Enotria’s CEO on acquiring Coe Vintners January 25, 2016 Troy Christensen, chief executive of Enotria & Coe, and Gary Edwards, growth and acquisition finance at Investec, explain the background, challenges, and motivation behind premium wine supplier Enotria’s acquisition of Coe Vintners. Why did Enotria decide to acquire Coe Vintners? Troy Christensen: Enotria was founded in the 1970s with the intention of bringing the best Italian [...]
SCS shares soar as sofa chain hikes full-year profit expectations January 19, 2016 Sofa and floorings chain ScS’s share price has soared by almost 17 per cent after the company said it expects full-year profits to beat City forecasts. In an unscheduled update the retailer, which floated last year, said trading over the key Christmas and January sales period was strong within both its 97 ScS stores and 30 [...]
Metro Bank IPO could be hit by Clydesdale flop January 18, 2016 The cut price flotation of Clydesdale Bank could deal a blow to fellow challenger Metro Bank’s IPO plans, experts have warned. National Australia Bank revealed Clydesdale would be valued £500m below expectations today, setting a price range for its London listed shares at 175p to 235p, valuing the bank between £1.54bn and £2.07bn. The lowest end of [...]
Standard Chartered garners a rare analyst “buy” rating January 14, 2016 Analysts at Berenberg have upgraded their recommendation on troubled emerging markets focused bank Standard Chartered to “buy”, due to a strategy switch to return and risk. Standard Chartered has previously focused on growth alongside fast growing emerging markets. General analyst consensus has been moving against Standard Chartered in recent months, with the latest survey of [...]
Bank of England’s monetary policy committee to keep interest rates at record lows this week January 10, 2016 The Bank of England’s committee of rate-setters will be keeping interest rates at record lows this week. A renewed drop in oil prices and slower pay growth are set to weigh on the Bank’s inflation outlook. Last month it voted to keep rates at 0.5 per cent – it aims to bring inflation to two per [...]
Investec: Challenger banks including OneSavings Bank, Aldermore are undervalued as investors are spooked by worries over buy-to-let regulation January 7, 2016 Concerns over increased regulation of the buy-to-let residential property market have prompted investors to undervalue some of Britain’s leading challenger banks, analysts at Investec have claimed. In a new note out today, Investec analysts upgraded their recommendation on OneSavings Bank, a FTSE250-listed lender, from “hold” to “buy” off the back of recent share price fluctuations. [...]
The biggest economic stories of 2015 and 2016 – Investec Comment December 21, 2015 Seven years after cutting them to record lows, last week, the US Federal Reserve finally put speculation to rest about when it would begin the process of increasing interest rates, announcing a small 25 basis points rise. This was hardly a surprise: it was almost completely factored into markets, so the real question was over [...]
City Moves for 21 December 2015 | Who’s switching jobs December 20, 2015 HAMPSHIRE TRUST BANK Karen Brown and John Pollington have joined Hampshire Trust Bank’s Property Finance team as directors while Daniel Norman has been appointed as Property Finance Lending Manager. Karen, who has 12 years’ property finance experience, is based in Harrogate. Prior to joining Hampshire Trust Bank she ran her own training company and before [...]
FTSE jumps as investors cheer the Fed rate rise – London Report December 18, 2015 TOP SHARE index, the FTSE 100, climbed yesterday, tracking gains on other equity markets after investors took the first US interest rate rise in nearly a decade as a sign of policymakers’ confidence in the world’s biggest economy. The FTSE rose 41 points, or 1.2 per cent to 6,102 points, but is down by around seven [...]
Aveva’s share price plummets 36 per cent as it calls off talks with Schneider Electric saying £550m merger would create “significant” challenges December 15, 2015 Aveva's share price plummeted more than 36 per cent this morning after the engineering group called off talks with Schneider Electric, saying a merger would create "significant" challenges "that could not be overcome without considerable additional risk and cost". The two businesses had announced a merger this summer, in which Schneider would have paid £550m for a 53.5 [...]