Booker buys Courivaud to boost its hotel trade October 14, 2010 CASH and carry giant Booker yesterday bought a rival which supplies Michelin-starred restaurants and leading hotel chains. It paid £14.5m for Ritter-Courivaud, which counts chef Rick Stein among its customers. Booker wants to expand the range of its catering offering through Ritter, which will remain under the management of Ian Le Vesconte. Chief executive Charles [...]
FOCUS ON: BRENTWOOD, ESSEX October 14, 2010 CREST BASE Price: From £183,000 This new development in the heart of Brentwood has both one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments for sale. The living area is open-plan and each flat also has a bathroom and a kitchen. Depending on the stage of construction, you can personalise various aspects of the internal finish. For commuters it is [...]
Classic is best for Caribbean satisfaction October 14, 2010 CARIBBEAN hotspots come and go but Barbados is a sunny stalwart – a developed, cultured playground for the rich and famous (Simon Cowell, Cliff Richard and Andrew Flintoff all have properties here), as well as for more humble folk. Yet despite its stability as a British favourite for homes and holidays in the sun (80 [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 12, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES NIGERIA APPROVES $2.5BN BID FOR NITEL Nigeria has approved a controversial $2.5bn offer for the country’s main fixed-line telecoms group, but has demanded that the winning consortium come up with a $750m downpayment to secure the sale. The approval follows years of ill-fated efforts to sell off Nitel, which has withered since liberalisation [...]
Fine dining at the Royal Exchange October 11, 2010 Sauterelle Royal Exchange, Bank, EC3V 3LR www.danddlondon.com 020 7618 2483 FOOD SERVICE ATMOSPHERE Cost per person without wine: £42 DESPITE the grandness of its architecture, its lofty dimensions, the prestige of its retail outlets and, above all, its illustrious place at the heart of the City’s history and culture, as a place to socialise or [...]
BACK ON THE BOIL October 10, 2010 Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has news to toast after doubling profits at his troubled restaurant business. Gordon Ramsay Holdings turned a £4.2m profit in the 11 months to August, up from £2.47m in the same period the previous year. Ramsay was forced to restructure and recapitalise his companies after rapid international expansion in 2008 backfired, [...]
How to live the Polynesian dream October 3, 2010 IT’S a hot and humid afternoon in Nadi on the Fijian mainland as we squash into the rather intimate 14-seater plane that is to deliver us to Taveuni in the north-east of the archipelago. Known as Fiji’s Garden Island for its pristine tropical rainforests and ridiculously beautiful beaches, Taveuni is to be the starting point [...]
The Square Mile’s retail revolution September 27, 2010 IN the thrust and frenzy of City life, it’s crucial to have somewhere you can take yourself for a bit of quiet repose, if only while you wolf down a sandwich at lunchtime. Problem is, such spaces are rather thin on the ground in the Square Mile – but in a month’s time, one of [...]
Off-piste: the pre-snow joys of Chamonix September 26, 2010 ASK MOST people what comes into their head when you mention Chamonix, and they’ll say skiing. But the mountain capital of the world has much more to offer, especially when the snow disappears from everywhere but the highest peaks. Home to over eighty nationalities – making it one of the most multicultural places in France [...]
Fears grow over second EU debt crisis September 23, 2010 FEARS of a second European Sovereign debt crisis grew yesterday as economic data showed Ireland’s second quarter GDP fell while uncertainty over how the country will support its banking sector triggered a sell-off in its bond markets that sent gilt yields to a record high. The sell-off came after the Irish government signalled that holders [...]