French foray for Compass May 5, 2010 COMPASS Group, the world’s biggest caterer, bought French food service business Caterine Restauration for an undisclosed sum yesterday. The French caterer, which specialises in the provision of services in the education and healthcare sectors, posted revenues of €41.8m (£35.8m) for the 12 months to 31 August 2009 with gross assets valued at €34m (£29m). Compass [...]
GOLDMAN EXECUTIVES KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY May 5, 2010 A RIFLE through the proxy statement issued by Goldman Sachs to its shareholders ahead of tomorrow’s general meeting throws the spotlight firmly back on compensation – and it seems the firm’s executives aren’t the only ones being scrutinised. That’s right – not only are investors being asked to give their thoughts on the pay packages [...]
BUFFETT PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS BY CAVORTING WITH HOUSEWIVES May 3, 2010 WARREN Buffett has been a well-recognised face over in the States for what seems like forever, but the old man certainly hasn’t lost his star appeal yet. Buffett’s no stranger to popular culture – he’s even made cameo appearances before in US soap opera All My Children (when he came to the rescue of one [...]
FOOD & BOOZE NEWS May 3, 2010 TRINITY GOES LITERARY Recipe books are ten-a-penny, but not many leave us as watered-of-mouth as How to Eat In by Adam Byatt, chef patron of Clapham’s rather fabulous Trinity restaurant. It’s a tome of serious beauty – the full-page pictures of boiled goose eggs with asparagus soldiers and a sensational fish pie topped with cockles [...]
Whitbread boosted by Premier Inn chain April 29, 2010 Britain’s biggest hotel operator Whitbread reported a rise in full-year pre-tax profit as its Premier Inn hotel chain attracted holidaymakers by offering rooms for as little as £29 a night. Whitbread, which also owns Costa Coffee and the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre pub restaurant chains, introduced new pricing initiatives to lure leisure customers to Premier [...]
Burger King tops Wall St forecasts on good margins April 29, 2010 Burger King reported a quarterly profit that edged past Wall Street’s expectations yesterday, helped by better-than-expected margins. The second-biggest US hamburger chain after McDonald’s had warned in March that bad weather in the central and eastern United States kept diners away during the quarter and it expected lower revenue and restaurant margins for the period. [...]
SUMMER SIZZLER April 28, 2010 AFTER a winter as long, cold and trying as the one we’ve just experienced, any excuse to wave it goodbye and welcome the arrival of warmer times should be celebrated – and there’s no better way of doing that than hauling the old barbecue out of the garden shed and firing it up. Offering a [...]
Markets crave clarity over economic strategy April 25, 2010 SO A LITTLE disappointing but in the end there was something for everyone in Friday’s GDP numbers. We looked for 0.4 per cent for the first quarter and got 0.2 per cent. You’d think that would be bad for Gordon Brown but he revelled in his line that this proved the recovery was fragile and [...]
Rejuvenation and wine in Lombardy April 25, 2010 PLINY the Younger wrote his Tragedia and Comedia in a villa on Lake Como and the lake has continued to attract the best and the richest of society, from Madonna and George Clooney to Gianni Versace, Ronaldinho and Sylvester Stallone. Indeed, the lakes of the northern Italian region of Lombardy – the most famous being [...]
Pick up a slice of European history April 22, 2010 ANYONE buying a Continental holiday home has a choice to make – do you like cutting-edge design and built-to-spec polish, or do you like something steeped in history? A minimalist mansion on an Ibizan hillside is one thing (a very nice thing), but a rambling old farmhouse or converted medieval church comes with a romance [...]