Mittal daughter buys Escada UK December 3, 2009 The UK subsidiary of German womenswear brand Escada was yesterday bought by Subco Limited, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mittal Trust. KPMG was appointed administrator of Escada UK and immediately sold it to the Mittal Trust. Escada the parent company was sold to Megha Mittal, daughter-in-law of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal last month. The sale [...]
Unite seeks 150m for investment arm December 1, 2009 UNITE GROUP, the student housing developer and manager, said yesterday its investment arm USAF was raising £150m to expand its property portfolio, in the latest indication that the student property market is thriving despite the downturn. The group has already secured £133m of its target from investors, it said, and has also received applications for [...]
Advisers head to the Gulf as rumours swirl November 29, 2009 Aidan Birkett is beginning a week of intense negotiations as the full implications of Dubai World’s debt problems emerge. The managing director for corporate finance at Deloitte is leading the process to shore up Dubai World’s crippled finances. The state-owned property and financial conglomerate announced last week it needed a six-month respite from its debt [...]
JPM Caz still leading FTSE adviser pack… November 29, 2009 BLUE-blooded City brokerage JP Morgan Cazenove is still proving its mettle as the City’s dominant corporate broking player, topping the adviser leaderboard again over the past quarter despite uncertainty caused by its imminent takeover by JP Morgan. The latest Hemscott adviser rankings guide, published today, shows that the firm advises a total of 240 broking [...]
Grant Thornton lags the Big Four November 19, 2009 GRANT THORNTON saw turnover fall four per cent over the past financial year as profit per partner dived nearly 20 per cent on costs related to its troublesome merger with rival Robson Rhodes. The fifth-biggest accountancy partnership said revenue fell 4.1 per cent to £378.2m in the year to 30 June. Chief executive Scott Barnes [...]
BRITAIN SINKS EVER DEEPER INTO THE RED November 19, 2009 UK PUBLIC borrowing reached a record high in October, according to official figures published yesterday, revealing the state of public finances to be much worse than many economists feared. Borrowing ballooned by £11.4bn during October, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, around double the consensus forecast. National debt has spiralled to £829.7bn – equivalent [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 18, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES LLOYDS OFFLOADS MALL FOR £300MHammerson, the UK real estate investment trust, has emerged as the preferred buyer of a £300m shopping mall near Glasgow being sold by Lloyds Banking Group after the original owner defaulted on the loan. The UK commercial property market has seen few sales by the larger lending banks, in [...]
ECONOMICS GURU MAGNUS WOWS THE CROWDS ON SPEAKER CIRCUIT November 15, 2009 GEORGE Magnus, senior economic adviser to investment bank UBS, has a fair few accolades to his name – not least the dubious honour of having predicted the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression in an uncannily prophetic research paper. But I hear the dapper 60-year-old has recently earned himself a new title, that [...]
Director pay in focus at AI November 15, 2009 ADMINISTRATORS to Aero Inventory (AI), the AIM-listed aero parts group that collapsed last week, are looking at ways to claw back money from the company’s directors amid concern over the level of pay and bonuses taken by key executives. KPMG, which last week took control of AI on behalf of banks, owed more than £300m, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 12, 2009 FINANCIAL TIMES NATIONAL EXPRESS FACES EUROSTAR BILLNational Express could be saddled with a bill of up to £32m to cover losses made by Eurostar, the cross-Channel rail service. The indebted transport group, which gives up its lossmaking East Coast rail franchise tonight, is the leading shareholder in a consortium that manages the UK end of [...]