The art of theft: Why do thieves steal famous paintings when they’re so hard to sell? October 28, 2014 On a freezing Stockholm evening just before Christmas 2000, a group of six to eight Middle Eastern men put into action a plan they’d been working on for months. The group parked cars in the middle of the three central roads leading to the Swedish National Museum and set them ablaze. As fire engines [...]
Clocks change 2014: Does it make financial sense to switch from BST to GMT? October 25, 2014 British Summer Time (BST) officially comes to an end tomorrow. The clocks go back an hour at 1am on 26 October, heralding the onset of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) where mornings get brighter, but evenings get darker earlier. However, while an extra hour in bed is a welcome bonus for the weekend, the [...]
CVC wins contest for Paroc Group October 22, 2014 PRIVATE equity group CVC Capital Partners yesterday snapped up Finnish insulation group Paroc, in a €700m (£551.5m) deal. CVC beat off a host of other bidders in the hotly contested auction, which was handled by advisers from Lazard. The Helsinki-based business employs around 2,100 people and has nine plants across in Finland, Sweden, Lithuania, Poland and [...]
Petropavlovsk boss Hambro says more sales may be on the cards October 22, 2014 GOLD mining company Petropavlovsk may have to sell more assets in a bid to cut costs, the company’s chairman Peter Hambro said yesterday. He made the comments while discussing the firm’s results for the third quarter of 2014, which saw production fall to 150,100oz of gold from 204,400oz this time last year. London-listed Petropavlovsk attributed [...]
Arm Holdings’ Simon Segars: Britain’s chief chipmaker is moving from smartphones to the Internet of Things October 21, 2014 Simon Segars, the boss of Britain’s biggest tech firm, believes his Chinese customers will begin adopting Arm’s latest chip designs in low-end smartphones next year, a move that would dramatically boost royalties. In its third quarter results yesterday, Arm Holdings, which makes processors for most of the world’s smartphones and tablets, revealed a two [...]
Total mourns loss of chief exec Christophe de Margerie in plane crash tragedy October 21, 2014 French oil company Total yesterday confirmed the death of its chairman and chief executive Christophe de Margerie “with deep regret and great sadness”. De Margerie, 63, was killed at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow on Monday night, when the private plane he was on collided with a snow plough. Three crew members on the plane also [...]
McDonald’s to restructure after “significant decline” in sales October 21, 2014 McDonald's is planning a major review of its working practices and structure on the back of a “significant decline" in revenues and profit. Revenues fell five per cent to $6.98bn (£3.8bn) for the three months to September 30, with the fast food giant blaming increased competition. Consolidated operating income plummeted 14 per cent to [...]
Russia escalates tensions with expansion of EU food import ban October 21, 2014 Russia is ramping up its tit-for-tat trade war with the EU through an extension of the food import ban to include animal fats and offal. Russia's food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor said the ban will come into effect today and applies to cattle and pig by-products, meat offal, cattle fat, pork fat (including lard) and bird [...]
Total CEO Christophe de Margerie killed in Moscow plane crash as his aircraft collides with snow-clearing machine October 21, 2014 The CEO of Europe's third largest oil company Christophe de Margerie has been killed after a collision between his private jet and a snow-clearing machine at Moscow's Vnukovo airport. Russian authorities said the incident had involved a Falcon-50 plane, with the collision occurring a little before midnight local time. Visibility was reported to have been [...]
Philips’ spotlight on €103m loss as technology giant releases disappointing results October 20, 2014 Technology giant Philips released disappointing third quarter results yesterday, showing a net loss of €103m (£103.76m), compared to a net income of €281m in 2013’s third quarter. “We are not satisfied with our overall performance in the third quarter,” chief executive Frans van Houten said. He went on to cite market softness and a jury [...]