Tesco suspends Kevin Grace: Fifth executive leaves over £250m profit miss October 7, 2014 Tesco has suspended a fifth director over a shock discovery last month of an error in its accounts which meant first half profits were overstated by £250m. Kevin Grace, Tesco’s group commercial director, was asked on Monday to step aside as Deloitte and Freshfields carry out their investigation into what went wrong in Tesco’s accounts. [...]
Indian summer hurts shop sales in September October 7, 2014 HIGH street sales growth came to a grinding halt last month for the first time since February after Britain’s Indian summer put shoppers off stocking up on winter clothing, according to new research out today. Accountancy firm BDO’s monthly high street sales tracker shows sales dipped by 2.9 per cent in September, ending the first [...]
City Moves for 8 October 2014 | Who’s switching jobs October 7, 2014 Carmignac Group Obe Ejikeme has been appointed quantitative equity analyst in the asset manager’s fund management team. He was previously head of European equity and quantitative strategy at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and has also worked at FactSet Research Systems. Old Mutual Global Investors The asset management firm has announced the appointment of Ian [...]
Tesco share price rises as Richard Cousins and Mikael Ohlsson join board October 6, 2014 Tesco brought some relief to its unhappy investors yesterday after announcing that it had beefed up its board by hiring the chief executive of catering giant Compass and the former boss of Ikea. The embattled retailer said Richard Cousins, a turnaround specialist who had led Compass since 2006, and Mikael Ohlsson, who was chief [...]
Battersea Power Station to put Frank Gehry and Norman Foster flats on sale October 6, 2014 Hundreds of homes designed by renowned architects Norman Foster and Frank Gehry will go on sale at Battersea Power Station this month, the owners revealed yesterday, with prices starting at £495,000. Gehry Partners and Foster + Partners have designed two schemes for the third phase of development at Battersea Power Station, with 1,305 [...]
Eurozone losing battle against new recession October 6, 2014 A WAVE of disappointing data released yesterday showed the Eurozone was struggling to stave off another recession, with the European Central Bank’s lacklustre statement on Thursday failing to lift confidence. Market inflation expectations (based on swaps prices) fell to 1.83 per cent, their lowest since 2010. ECB president Mario Draghi disappointed investors last week when he failed [...]
London’s thriving tech sector is under threat – from bonkers EU VAT reforms October 6, 2014 LONDON’S technology sector is thriving, with the capital’s tech firms attracting a record $1bn in venture capital investment in the first nine months of 2014. And as the general election approaches, there’s been no shortage of ideas for policy changes that could accelerate London’s tech growth further. Take the recent Coadec manifesto, which proposed a [...]
Retail investors are worth courting – Editor’s Letter October 5, 2014 London’s been having a pretty good time of things as far as raising money for newly listed companies is concerned. So far this year 99 floats on the London Stock Exchange and the junior Alternative Investment Market have raised a total of £10.4bn, up from £8.7bn last year and only £2.5bn in 2012 when the [...]
Tesco’s share price has fallen 52pc in a year, but company receives Gulfstream jet October 4, 2014 Tesco's share price has dropped 52.4 per cent in the last year and it overestimated its half-year profits by £250m. Why, then, is the besieged supermarket taking delivery of a new private jet; a Gulfstream G550 worth a reported £31m? Any blame could lie at the door of Philip Clarke, the chief executive who left the [...]
UK supermarkets vs German discounters: Morrisons gets tough as Buffett attacks Tesco October 2, 2014 Britain’s embattled supermarkets have finally begun their fight back against German discounters Aldi and Lidl who have been eating their lunch in recent months with double-digit growth in the sector. Morrison, the UK’s fourth biggest supermarket, will launch its first customer loyalty card today, along with a price-matching scheme that its chief executive has labelled [...]