John Lewis cuts staff bonus as profit falls March 7, 2012 Britain’s biggest department store group John Lewis cut its staff bonus for the first time in three years and posted a 3.8 per cent fall in year profit, showing even the firm’s affluent customer base is not immune to straitened times. The 148-year-old employee-owned group, whose stakeholder business model has been lauded by politicians including [...]
Santander UK prepares for float with a board overhaul March 6, 2012 SANTANDER UK has overhauled its board and appointed a new chief financial officer in a move widely seen as preparation for the float of the business when market conditions improve. Stephen Jones, who the bank poached from Barclays last year, will join the board as CFO and head of regulation, so that the lender has [...]
ROYAL MAIL TO DEVELOP BATTERSEA DEPOT March 6, 2012 THE ROYAL Mail has won planning permission from Wandsworth Council to redevelop its South London mail centre next to Battersea Power Station into a residential scheme. The 13-acre development includes 1,800 homes, a primary school and retail and public space. Royal Mail will also invest around £50m in the extension of the Northern line and [...]
A firm fuelled by the same spirit as the Olympic and Paralympic Games March 6, 2012 COUNTDOWN TO THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES 142 DAYS TO GO Mike Sharrock is the man helping BP to bring twenty-first century energy to the London 2012 Games Q. WHAT WAS YOUR BRAND’S PRIMARY REASON FOR BEING INVOLVED WITH THE GAMES ? A. BP has had its home in London for over 100 years now, [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 5, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES REGULATORS CONSIDER AN OVERHAUL OF LIBOR UK regulators and global banks are discussing a potentially far-reaching overhaul of the calculation and regulation of interbank lending rates, amid claims that the benchmark for $350 trillion contracts worldwide may have been subject to manipulation. STARBUCKS TAKES COFFEE WARS TO NESPRESSO Coffee capsule wars are set [...]
London needs somebody to gamble on an IPO March 5, 2012 WITH the Edwards vacuum technology company heading for a £1bn flotation in the US and Mayfair-based jewellery retailer Graff also preferring a Hong Kong listing to braving the UK new issue markets, only one thing is certain: the London IPO market is in a pretty bad way. Bankers that I’ve been speaking to say they [...]
Insurance firms need regulators to pay attention March 4, 2012 PRUDENTIAL’S threat to quit the UK and move its headquarters to Asia isn’t a hollow one. There is a growing feeling in the City that British insurers are getting a raw deal from Solvency II, the new capital requirements that will soon govern the sector. There is wide acknowledgement that the UK regulator, the Financial [...]
FTSE sees banks up as Greece is saved March 2, 2012 The FTSE 100 was flat this morning and the only significant gainers were banks buoyed by further steps towards saving Greece from the financial abyss. In Wall Street and in Asia nudged up overnight as the European Central Bank’s fresh liquidity injection this week served to warm up investor sentiment. The spotlight is on the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING March 1, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES STAFF AT JOHN LEWIS BRACED FOR BONUS CUT The John Lewis Partnership is next week expected to announce the first cut in its staff bonus for three years as high street turmoil takes its toll on the employee-owned retailer. Analysts who track the group’s weekly sales figures forecast a pay-out of 12-14 per [...]
Cassin moves from adviser to finance head at the data firm March 1, 2012 BRIAN Cassin (pictured inset) is to leave Greenhill after 14 years at the end of April. And though the jump from investment bank to UK-listed data specialist Experian will be a change of pace, it won’t be a total culture shock for the Irish-born banker. Cassin has spent years advising the company, working with predecessor GUS [...]