City & Gild: Does low cost have to equal low expectations? March 28, 2014 Easyjet has announced that it is cutting its expected pre-tax losses, with CEO Carolyn McCall attributing its success to “progress against strategic priorities”. One of those key priorities is allocated seating, introduced by the budget airline in November 2012 and very well-received by its customers. I have the frequent displeasure of flying Ryanair and have [...]
Ryanair gets a credit rating as it prepares to tap the bond market March 20, 2014 RYANAIR was given a credit rating of BBB+ yesterday, taking the budget airline a step closer to issuing bonds. Standard & Poor’s said the rating reflected Ryanair’s “industry-leading profitability” along with the risks associated with its “reputation for providing less customer-friendly services than some of its peers”. S&P has deemed Ryanair to be three notches [...]
O’Leary’s return of the mac March 13, 2014 THE RYANAIR Chase gathered almost as much attention as the airline’s chief exec himself yesterday, as Michael O’Leary broke with sartorial tradition (true to form) and entered the parade ring in a beige mac, standing out from his tweed jacketed peers. Sadly, despite it being St Patrick’s Day Thursday his Irish eyes won’t have been [...]
More Of That usurps duo as Big Buck’s bows out March 13, 2014 JOCKEY Barry Geraghty praised the staying power of More Of That after the Jonjo O’Neill-trained gelding upstaged Annie Power and Big Buck’s in the World Hurdle at Cheltenham yesterday. The feature race of the festival’s third day had been billed as a straight duel between the favourites but ended with Annie Power beaten for the [...]
Benefficient can give Ireland a long overdue success in the Ryanair March 12, 2014 BILL ESDAILE PREVIEWS THE RYANAIR CHASE AND THE KIM MUIR THE outspoken Michael O’Leary has made no secret of his desire to see one of his horses, running in the famous maroon Gigginstown Stud colours, win the race sponsored by the airline that made his fortune. Apart from the inaugural running of this Grade One [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 12 March 2014 March 11, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Brent crude contract underpinning Slowing output from the North Sea may require IntercontinentalExchange to add oil grades from beyond the offshore European fields to underpin its flagship Brent crude contract. The comments from David Peniket, president of the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, echo growing industry concern that the global crude oil benchmark [...]
Festival fever is hitting the City once again March 9, 2014 Patrick Callaghan reports from City AM’s Unibet-sponsored Cheltenham Festival Preview at The Brewery THE CHANNEL 4 triumvirate of Mick Fitzgerald, Tom Lee, and the glamorous Gina Bryce, as well as our racing editor Bill Esdaile, made up the panel at City AM's Cheltenham Festival Preview sponsored by Unibet on Friday afternoon. The jump racing extravaganza [...]
EasyJet and Ryanair lift traffic March 6, 2014 EasyJet carried 4.2m passengers in February, up 2.9 per cent on a year ago, the budget carrier announced yesterday. Its 12-month traffic is up 3.5 per cent on the previous year. Meanwhile, Ryanair hailed its new customer service upgrades for helping boost passenger numbers seven per cent to 4.5m last month, taking its rolling annual [...]
Bonderman’s TPG eyes future flotation to join buyout rivals February 25, 2014 THE CHAIRMAN of budget airline Ryanair and private equity guru David Bonderman yesterday said he was “contemplating” floating his firm TPG Capital. Bonderman, speaking at private equity conference Super Return in Berlin yesterday, said TPG would join the public markets at some point in the future. “At the end of the day, everybody will go [...]
10 things you need to know about Whatsapp’s founders February 20, 2014 So, Facebook has opened the giant gates to its social coffers again – this time forking out $19bn for Whatsapp – making it its most expensive shopping trip ever. It makes Facebook’s offer of $3bn for Snapchat in November last year look like small change. Zuckerberg and his desire to control all inter-friend communication [...]