Severn Trent to target bonds at retail investors June 21, 2012 INDIVIDUAL investors will have the chance to buy bonds from FTSE 100 utilities firm Severn Trent, the company announced yesterday. The company hopes to raise up to £100m from the scheme, which will offer individuals a return of 1.9 per cent above retail price inflation (RPI) over the next 10 years. “There’s a lot of [...]
ADVISERS June 21, 2012 BARCLAYS TOBY CROASDELL CHARLOTTE WEIR Severn Trent’s inflation-linked bond issue is the first move by a water company into the fast-growing market for RPI-linked bonds. The deal was jointly arranged by Investec and a Barclays team that included directors Toby Croasdell of the fixed income syndicate and Charlotte Weir of corporate debt capital markets. This [...]
£800m Olympic spending boost June 21, 2012 The Olympic games will bring London an £800m consumer spending boost, a Visa report claims today, with international visitors spending about £749m. The profit made by hotels, supermarkets, high street retailers and the travel sector is expected to create an additional £1.21bn for the economy. The Olympics may have a long-term benefit as increased international [...]
DFS upbeat as it launches stores June 20, 2012 DFS yesterday hailed an “improving trend” in its performance and said it continued to gain market share after stepping up its expansion in the third quarter of the year. The sofa retailer, which runs 91 stores in the UK, reported a 21 per cent fall in underlying earnings to £44.5m in the nine months to [...]
Case against Farepak directors and parent company collapses June 20, 2012 A GOVERNMENT companies watchdog yesterday abandoned its bid to penalise directors of a Christmas saving scheme which collapsed in 2006 leaving tens out of thousands of savers out of pocket. The Insolvency Service, part of business secretary Vince Cable’s department for business, innovation and skills, said it was discontinuing High Court action against both former [...]
Inflation falls at last – but the damage has already been done June 20, 2012 AT last, Britain’s inflation problem is abating. Prices are still increasing too quickly – inflation remains at 3.1 per cent on the retail price index and 2.8 per cent on the consumer price index, painful as wages are growing far less quickly. But the direction of travel is reassuring. The Bank of England – by [...]
Inflation falls at last – but the damage has already been done June 19, 2012 AT last, Britain’s inflation problem is abating. Prices are still increasing too quickly – inflation remains at 3.1 per cent on the retail price index and 2.8 per cent on the consumer price index, painful as wages are growing far less quickly. But the direction of travel is reassuring. The Bank of England – by [...]
Hammerson to sell its offices to Brookfield June 19, 2012 HAMMERSON, the Anglo-French property developer, announced yesterday it is selling the bulk of its London office portfolio to Canada’s Brookfield Office Properties for £518m. The deal comes after chief executive David Atkins put the offices up for sale in February to focus on retail property in the UK and France. The FTSE 100 firm’s retail [...]
What Britain must do to win back investors from a surging Germany June 19, 2012 BRITAIN is on the verge of losing its foreign direct investment (FDI) crown. After a 15 year record as the leading European destination, the investment tide has begun to flow away. While the UK remains Europe’s top destination for inward projects, we will lose this crown to Germany, within two years, unless action is taken. [...]
Market report: FTSE benefits from caffeine hit as inflation falls June 19, 2012 Coffee and a promise to safeguard the Eurozone from further contagion pushed the FTSE up 0.4 per cent in early trading this morning. As a result London’s blue chip index broke through the 5,500 level – a technical level seen as key for spurring further buying. Last night European leaders at the G20 summit in [...]