Growth in China on the cards at Boots November 7, 2010 HIGH STREET health and beauty retailer Boots hopes to make headway in China when its executive chairman travels to the country as part of David Cameron’s first official visit as Prime Minister. Stefano Pessina has reportedly organised talks with potential partners in Beijing and Shanghai while he is in the country, as part of a [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 5, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES NEW HOLE IN CONNAUGHT DEBT The scale of debt at Connaught, the collapsed property services group, will be greater than previously thought after administrators found 50,000 invoices that the company had not accounted for. Management accounts had led administrators from KPMG to believe that the social housing maintenance arm of Connaught owed £46m [...]
The dining scene is hotting up this winter November 3, 2010 AGAINST the odds perhaps, but 2010 has been a cracking year for restaurant openings in London. From the old-fashioned cool of Soho’s Dean Street Townhouse to Pierre Koffmann’s return to glory, the cosy joy that is Polpo to Daniel Boulud’s Knightsbridge bistro, there’s been plenty to love. And if anything, the openings are accelerating. The [...]
East London is stormed by new bars November 3, 2010 APLETHORA of new bars are arriving from the East (or at least East of central). First up we have the new offering from Will Ricker’s group, Glo Glo (pictured below). This super cool Shoreditch bar is on Great Eastern Street but is perfect for cocktail lovers. One of a new breed of female mixologists is [...]
Job loss doom and gloom will help nobody November 2, 2010 YESTERDAY, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) warned the government’s austerity measures would cause 1.6m job losses, adding to the doom and gloom that surrounds the spending review. But their analysis ignores key facts. The Lamont-Clarke fiscal squeeze in the 1990s resulted in 600,000 public sector job losses, but this did not prevent [...]
The commercial property king who says the City is ready for take-off November 2, 2010 Land Securities’ chief executive leaps from behind his desk, bounding across his seventh floor office overlooking Trafalgar Square as he welcomes City A.M. – after years of stagnation, the country’s biggest property developer is on the move again – and it certainly seems to have put a spring in Francis Salway’s step. Last week, the FTSE [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 31, 2010 THE SUNDAYS The Sunday Telegraph MAUDE DEMANDS SERCO ANSWER Serco is to be ordered to explain to the government why it took the highly unusual step of writing to its leading suppliers to demand that they pay a blanket 2.5 per cent “cash rebate” on their work this year or risk losing future contracts. Serco, [...]
CITY VIEWS: WHAT WILL ONE NEW CHANGE MEAN FOR THE CITY? October 28, 2010 MARK WEBSTER | BT “It means I won’t have to spend my weekends shopping, as I can do it all in my lunch break. It’s interesting to see such a large project in these economic times, but from the crowds today it seems like it will be used.” JANDRE ELS | REDSTONE “It’s quite a [...]
Bid frenzy for WestLB as the deadline nears October 28, 2010 AILING German state-controlled lender WestLB, which has been put up for sale, has attracted the interest of several potential buyers, two people familiar with the bank said yesterday. Non-binding indications of interest have been handed to bankers at Morgan Stanley who have been commissioned to manage any sale. WestLB, which is partially owned by the [...]
Theatreland’s newest French fancy October 25, 2010 Les Deux Salons 40-42 William IV Street, WC2N 4DD Tel: 020 7420 2050 FOOD SERVICE ATMOSPHERE Cost per person without wine: £36 IF THOSE strikes across the Channel are thwarting anyone’s plans for an autumnal French sojourn, don’t worry – France has come to London instead. Les Deux Salons is the latest place to be [...]