M&S hires overseas retail chief February 24, 2011 MARKS & Spencer (M&S) has poached Jan Heere from Spanish fashion group Inditex to lead its drive for business overseas. The clothing, homewares and food retailer yesterday named Heere as its new director of international, reporting to chief executive Marc Bolland. It said Heere, fluent in English, Spanish, French, Dutch and Russian, has worked for [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 23, 2011 Smith & Williamson The law firm has appointed a new head of its City-based restructuring and recovery team. Anthony Spicer will take up the role in the firm’s Moorgate office. He is a chartered accountant and licensed insolvency practitioner. He has specialised in turnaround and resturucturing since 1989, on both the lending and company side, [...]
BP inks $7bn Indian deal with Reliance February 21, 2011 BP has lined up one of the biggest-ever foreign direct investments in India after agreeing to pay Reliance Industries $7.2bn (£4.4bn) to jointly explore deepwater oil and gas deposits in the country. The long-term deal with Reliance, which could see BP pour $20bn into the project, was sealed at Downing Street yesterday. BP will take [...]
Carlsberg takes hit from Russian tax payments February 21, 2011 DANISH brewer Carlsberg blamed a sharp drop in fourth-quarter profit on an excise duty rise in its biggest market Russia and falling Eastern European sales. The world’s fourth biggest brewer said yesterday that organic operating profit growth declined significantly in its key Eastern European market, although it was strong in Northern and Western Europe and [...]
Kingfisher in profit boost February 17, 2011 B&Q owner Kingfisher yesterday forecast a 20 per cent rise in annual profits after strong overseas growth offset weak trading in the UK. The group said it expects adjusted pre-tax profits for the year ending last month to be at the top end of City expectations at £672m. Strong sales in countries such as Poland [...]
ANALYST VIEWS: IS KINGFISHER’S RECOVERY SUSTAINABLE ? February 17, 2011 PHILIP DORGAN | ALTIUM SECURITIES Kingfisher could, over the long term, double its business in Poland and Spain, treble in Turkey and quadruple in Russia, with China moving towards profitability. It also has potential to improve profits further in the UK. All of this should drive decent earnings growth, cash generation and higher returns. KEITH [...]
For the Brics, adolescence could prove to be difficult February 16, 2011 WHEN the idea of a Bric fund – an equity fund focused on Brazil, Russia, India and China – first took off in the mid-noughties, they were all the rage with investors. Goldman Sachs predicted 2050 would be the year when the Brics became the world’s leading economies, and today they are heading resolutely in [...]
Danone warns of price rise February 15, 2011 FRENCH food group Danone is planning to raise some of its prices this year as well as making productivity gains to help combat an expected rise of up to nine per cent rise in raw material costs, it said yesterday. The world’s largest yoghurt maker with brands like Actimel and Activia, forecast the price of [...]
Kremlin kicks off sale with VTB offering February 14, 2011 RUSSIA has kicked off a massive $60bn?(£37.4bn) privatisation drive with the sale of part of its stake in the country’s second biggest bank VTB, raising $3.26bn. The Kremlin sold a ten per cent stake in the lender, which it stepped in to rescue at the height of the financial crisis. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin [...]
Funds target emerging markets February 14, 2011 ECONOMIC recovery in different global regions is happening at varying speeds, leading asset managers to invest in a wide range of emerging markets for growth, a new survey found yesterday. Fund managers are cautiously optimistic that indebted western economies will deal with sovereign debt, but are targeting Asia for returns, a survey by RBC Capital [...]