Gordon Ramsey restaurants boil down losses May 17, 2015 GORDON Ramsey kept sales across his restaurant empire simmering last year after new openings in south London helped to offset the end of his contract at Claridges hotel. Turnover at the celebrity chef’s 26 restaurants edged down in the year to August 2014 to £44.7m from £44.8m the previous year, according to accounts filed by [...]
Bangalore: India’s most livable city and the fast-track to its vibrant tech-filled future May 17, 2015 If Old Delhi is the crumbling emblem of India’s imperial past and Mumbai is the pounding heart of its contemporary popular culture, Bengaluru (anglicised as Bangalore) and Chennai are the country’s fast track to the future. The former, and less often the latter, are nicknamed the Silicon Valley of India on account of their thriving [...]
A pop-up “Breaking Bad” cocktail bar is coming to London… and it’s from the creators of the owl bar May 15, 2015 London shows no signs of going off the fickle concept of pop-ups or novelty bars, cafes and restaurants. The latest to join a string of limited-time-only haunts this summer is a pop-up themed around the hit TV show Breaking Bad. From the organisers of the controversial bar which hosted live owls, comes a new cocktail [...]
Why I can’t feel sorry for LinkedIn as its share price tumbles May 12, 2015 When I read that shares of the business networking company LinkedIn plunged by 20 per cent, I felt quietly cheered. I’m so pleased about it, in fact, that I’m thinking of sending all their connections an email inviting them to congratulate it. Inappropriate? Maybe, but no more so than the one they sent my contacts [...]
A guide to Ibiza for grown ups: What the White Isle offers the more discerning clubber with a budget May 11, 2015 What do you do when you’ve just suffered a humiliating election defeat that virtually nobody on the planet predicted? Why, you board the first flight to Ibiza, of course. Right now, at 6am on a Tuesday morning, Ed Miliband could well be gurning on the terrace of a beach club, stripped to his chinos, glow-sticks [...]
Buyout group 3i grows appetite for Yo! Sushi May 10, 2015 Suitors circling Japanese restaurant chain Yo! Sushi have entered a second round of bidding, with private equity firm 3i understood to be one of the frontrunners in the race. Yo! Sushi’s private equity owner Quilvest hired bankers at Canaccord Genuity last year to explore a sale of the business, with a price tag of around [...]
Tesco considers selling mobile phone business May 8, 2015 Tesco could soon shed its mobile phone business as part of chief executive Dave Lewis' scaling back process following a torrid 2014. The retailer makes around £100m a year from the business it co-owns with 02, whose network the service uses. It has around 250 Tesco Mobile shops across the country. Yet according to the [...]
The night-time economy just got its own industry group May 7, 2015 The £66bn night-time economy will now be backed by its own industry group, which has been set up to trumpet the broad-based contribution it makes to the UK. The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) said it will be making the case for the sector, which was responsible 1.3m jobs and £66bn in annual revenue back [...]
Wetherspoon is holding its own in the face of the supermarket price war May 6, 2015 It may be at a “great disadvantage” to supermarkets, but JD Wetherspoon still managed to report an increase in sales. The figures In an interim management statement, the company announced like for like sales were up 1.7 per cent in the 13 weeks to 26 April, and 3.6 per cent for the financial year to [...]
Just Eat devours more customers as orders jump May 5, 2015 ONLINE takeaway service Just Eat reported a jump in orders in the first three months of the year, as investment into its apps and websites paid off. Just Eat listed last Spring, and became the biggest technology float in London in eight years, said that like-for-like orders increased by 47 per cent in the first [...]