Shaftesbury keen to buy after slump December 1, 2009 THE LONDON landlord Shaftesbury reported a fall in the value of its property last year, but forecast improving demand and more acquisitions. Shaftesbury, which owns more than 450 properties focused in the West End, said its portfolio was worth £1.21bn at the end of September, down 3.8 per cent against a year ago after falls [...]
THE TIPSTER November 30, 2009 PUB company Mitchells & Butlers posted a solid set of full-year results last week, which has been followed by potential mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity as a group of major shareholders attempt to wrest control of the board. It is still early days, but with last week’s results underpinning the share price, it is clear [...]
SLOVAKIA November 29, 2009 SLOVAKIA is perhaps the most up-and-coming location for European skiing. The past decade has seen considerable investment in the area’s tourism, which means an increasing number of top-quality lifts and facilities, and some plush new hotels. The especially good news is that it’s cheaper than skiing in the Alps – a six day lift pass [...]
ANDORRA November 29, 2009 IT may be Europe’s sixth smallest nation with a population you could fit inside Wembley Stadium, but Andorra, thanks to a vast investment programme in recent years, is fast becoming one of the UK’s most popular winter sports destinations, with Brits making up a high proportion of the country’s 10.2m annual visitors. High in the [...]
John Lewis experiences week of record sales as Christmas looms November 29, 2009 SALES are soaring at John Lewis, according to sales figures released by the department store this weekend. Figures released for the week ending 28 November show increases in electrical and home technology sales. Sales for the week reached a total of £91.79m reached, 22 per cent more than the same time last year. Televisions, coffee [...]
Think inside the Square: why the City is a top spot to buy a home November 26, 2009 IF YOU’RE looking for the ultimate Tube-busting pied a terre, the Square Mile can’t be bettered for history, beauty and – of course – convenience. Other financial centres are not exactly places you’d want to live: tightly packed with skyscrapers and fumes, they have a sterile, uninhabitable feel (just think of mid-town New York or [...]
An East End gastropub on the up November 23, 2009 The Princess of Shoreditch76 Paul Street EC2A 4NE,Tel: 020 7729 9270Cost per person without wine: £34 THE NEWLY revamped Princess of Shoreditch describes itself as a “gastropub and restaurant”, which might be seen as having your cake and eating it, but the owners have grand ideas. In the bar downstairs you can get souped-up pub [...]
BLUE-BLOODED CAZENOVE AND THE MYSTERY OF A TRUE ANCIENT RELIC November 19, 2009 BLUE-blooded City stockbroker Cazenove might have officially agreed to surrender the rest of itself to US investment bank JP Morgan, but something tells The Capitalist the die-hards won’t be ready to forget the firm’s noble heritage in a hurry. Lunch yesterday was with a City chum who remembers Caz’s days at its old headquarters in [...]
Belt tightening hits Restaurant November 18, 2009 RESTAURANT GROUP, the retailer behind Garfunkel’s and Frankie & Benny’s, yesterday warned of falling revenues. Sales were down three per cent year-on-year between January and October despite the opening of 17 new eateries. The company said rising unemployment, tight credit markets and high levels of household debt had made 2009 a “challenging” time to run [...]
The amateur economist who finds the truth in the freakiest places November 16, 2009 FOR someone who has spent much of the last decade successfully writing about economics, Stephen Dubner is surprisingly keen to point out that he is not an economist. Following his co-authorship of Freakonomics, one of the publishing phenomena of recent years, and a sequel called Superfreakonomics, however, surely he has picked up some knowledge. Well [...]