Verizon planning second round bid for Yahoo’s internet business, sending the share price lower as figures fall short of expectations June 7, 2016 US telecoms giant Verizon is reportedly readying a second-round bid for Yahoo's core internet business. The bid is expected to come in ahead of the Monday deadline and will value the business at around $3bn (£2bn), some $2bn under expectations. The lower-than-expected bid sent Yahoo's share price down by around 0.5 per cent in New York. Previously bids [...]
How UK media companies are surviving digital disruption June 7, 2016 The UK’s media and entertainment sector is in “rude health”, with revenues up 21 per cent since 2011, despite digital disruption. Deloitte’s Media Metrics 2016 report looked at the 100 largest UK companies in the area, finding a total turnover of £87bn in the firms’ latest accounts. Deloitte predicts this number, based on 2014 or [...]
Ignore Remain’s Brexit deceptions: EU backers are the real protectionists June 7, 2016 Following Michael Gove’s impressive performance in the Sky “debate” last week, the Stronger In campaign was always going to clutch at straws to find some supposed slip-up to exploit. This time it was Gove’s admission that “I cannot say that everybody in their current job will keep their job” following a Brexit. This, the Remain [...]
How Iglu.com founder Richard Downs is taking on the world in the growing market for cruise holidays June 7, 2016 The internet has turned the travel industry on its head, giving ordinary people unprecedented opportunities to create bespoke holidays that were once the preserve of the rich. But it’s not just online travel warehouses like Airbnb and Expedia that have pushed the traditional agent off our high streets. The internet has enabled specialist providers to thrive [...]
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has attacked Michael Gove over claims that Brexit could generate billions for the NHS June 6, 2016 The Institute for Fiscal Studies has condemned justice secretary Michael Gove's claims that a Brexit vote would free up billions to be spent on the NHS. Speaking on Sky News on Friday, Gove said: “There are billions of pounds that we send to the European Union every year and the Institute for Fiscal Studies has [...]
Private equity companies expected to line up for GHD as Lion Capital plans auction June 6, 2016 Leeds-based hair care company GHD could be sold by current private equity owner Lion Capital for more than £400m. GHD, which supplies hair care products to all manner of celebrities, from Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow to Katy Perry and Jennifer Aniston, made £33.7m in pre-tax profit in its 2015-16 financial year, making a £400m price tag around 13 times earnings. Sales jumped 9.5 per [...]
The Brexit debate misses the point: The EU is completely irrelevant to the UK’s success in a multipolar world June 6, 2016 I have watched the current Brexit debate with growing frustration, as both sides entirely miss the point. While David Cameron – a chicken little if ever there was one – keeps ridiculously intoning that the sky will fall down if Britain dares to leave the smothering embrace of Brussels, the Out campaign talks obsessively of immigration. [...]
A family affair: How Ben and Ollie Black built their childcare empire June 6, 2016 Two minutes with the Black brothers and Laurel and Hardy come up. “You know, ‘another fine mess you’ve got me into’,” says Oliver Black, describing how he initially conceived of working with his brother. “I spent Christmas trying to convince Ollie that I knew about buying a company,” says Ben Black. The pair bought failing childcare [...]
Treasury’s bank bailout tsar Kingman in talks with L&G June 5, 2016 The senior civil servant who was central to Britain's bank bailouts in 2008 is in line to chair FTSE 100-listed insurer and asset manager Legal & General. John Kingman, who is stepping down as second permanent secretary of the Treasury, has been approached about taking over the position when current chair, John Stewart, leaves the role on 1 June. It's [...]
Gove slams investment banks over EU relationship June 5, 2016 Michael Gove has fired shots at investment banks and big business in the midst of EU referendum campaigning, saying the EU is rigged in their favour. One of the most high profile campaigners for leaving the EU alongside Boris Johnson, Gove said that big banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley calling the shots in [...]