Google pays $1.3bn for sat-nav app Waze June 14, 2013 GOOGLE has pipped both Apple and Facebook to buy Waze, an Israeli social mapping service popular amongst commuters. Waze, which has almost 50m members, uses a smartphone’s location data to improve its maps and create real-time traffic information, allowing drivers to take the fastest route to a destination. It is now expected that Google will [...]
YO! Sushi owner gets taste for Byron burgers June 9, 2013 THE OWNER of high street restaurant YO! Sushi has emerged as a potential suitor to snap up hamburger chain Byron after submitting a bid for the company, it is thought. Quilvest, which bought the Japanese restaurant in 2008 and also owns Mexican grill restaurant Tortilla, is in the running alongside Searchlight Capital Partners to take [...]
Permira nets a €250m Norwegian fish vaccine deal April 5, 2013 PERMIRA, the London-based owner of Birds Eye Fish Fingers, has snapped up Norwegian fish vaccine maker Pharmaq for €250m (£210.9m). Permira will buy the 28-year-old company, which makes aquatic vaccines for fisheries in Norway, Chile and the UK, from Nordic fund managers Orkla and Kverva, who acquired a majority stake in the firm in 2008. [...]
Mama buys Hoxton Bar & Kitchen for £1.9m March 20, 2013 MAMA Group, the music venue owner which was sold by HMV to private equity firm LDC in December, has snapped up East London’s Hoxton Bar & Kitchen for £1.9m. Its parent company Barworks confirmed yesterday it has sold the restaurant, bar and live music venue to Mama, which owns the Jazz Cafe and Barfly in [...]
Dedicated Federer of fashion February 27, 2013 THERE IS a problem. It is 8am in Dubai and a freak storm has descended over the improbable desert city. Where there should – statistically, at least – be clear, azure skies, there is a mulch of saggy grey cloud. This is a problem because I was supposed to be boarding a helicopter to Roger [...]
FTSE 250 Results Round-up – 27/02 February 27, 2013 Barratt Developments, the residential property development company, released results for the six months to December (results) with profits increased by 113.4 per cent to £46.1m. Chief executive Mark Clare said that: Although we remain cautious as to whether the thaw in lending conditions will be sustained, improvements in mortgage lending and the success of the [...]
Review: Apero at the Ampersand February 26, 2013 Apero has fish is to die for, if you don’t mind the charmingly chaotic atmosphere, says Steve Dinneen APERO @ AMPERSAND; 10 Harrington Road, SW7 3ER; tel: 020 7589 5895 FOOD **** SERVICE *** Value **** Cost per person with wine: £50 A few years ago I was wandering through Kreuzberg, before it was completely [...]
Italian deadlock weighs on FTSE February 26, 2013 The leading share index sank this morning as Italy voted for a hung parliament, which spooked stock markets. Italy faced political deadlock after a protest vote left no party or no likely coalition with enough seats to form a majority. In early trading, the FTSE 100 was down almost 1.3 per cent, with financial shares [...]
Tennis ace Murray buys a hotel in plan to repay his home town February 25, 2013 BRITAIN’S No1 tennis player Andy Murray has splashed out £1.8m to acquire a hotel in Dunblane, the planned development of which he hopes will provide a major boost to the economy in his home town. The Cromlix House Hotel, where his brother Jamie married wife Alejandra Gutierrez in 2010, is a Victorian Mansion, which Murray [...]
Symphony hits the right notes February 25, 2013 EMERGING market money manager Symphony International, which taps into Asia’s growing consumer spending, yesterday said it boosted fund value by almost 12 per cent last quarter due to surging revenues from its companies. Symphony, based in Hong Kong, invests in a vast array of consumer staples across Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, including hotels and [...]