French bidding kicks off for football rights April 7, 2014 BIDDING for the Champions League football television rights in France is expected to start today, a process likely to be watched closely by UK broadcasters BT and BSkyB as they prepare for the upcoming Premier League auction early next year. Qatar-owned Al Jazeera, via its sport channel beIN Sports, and Canal Plus, owned by Vivendi, [...]
Scared of flying? Five top tips for staying in control while in the air April 6, 2014 GLOBAL travel is at the heart of both our working and personal lives, yet one in six of us suffers from pteromerhanophobia – the fear of flying. For many, the Malaysian Airlines tragedy brought this into sharp focus; we all know that the chance of disaster is minute, but once the nagging doubt creeps in [...]
Second place for Armitstead April 6, 2014 BRITAIN’S Lizzie Armitstead sprinted to second place in the Tour of Flanders yesterday, cementing her lead in cycling’s World Cup. The Olympic silver medallist pipped Swede Emma Johansson to finish behind her Dutch team-mate Ellen van Dijk in a Boels-Dolmans one-two. Armitstead’s third podium from three World Cup events this year kept her top of [...]
Just Eat is off to sizzling start on the market April 3, 2014 SHARES in Just Eat, the online food takeaway group, yesterday finished their first day of trading 23p above an already high issue price, to value a group with underlying earnings of £14m at an astonishing £1.6bn. When the group first started discussing the possibility of floating earlier this year, the assumption was it would fetch [...]
Lloyds in bid to up top exec pay April 3, 2014 LLOYDS Banking Group is seeking shareholder approval to boost the pay of its 400 most senior staff. The bank, which the government still holds a 24.9 per cent stake in, wants the flexibility to pay its executives up to 200 per cent of their salaries via bonus awards. The move comes ahead of new EU [...]
BSkyB faces “significant risks” over Premier League auction April 3, 2014 HSBC has reiterated its bearish position on BSkyB with an "underweight" rating. The bank expects concerns over the Premier League rights auction will resurface resulting in significant risks to BSkyB. Despite a rise of 8.2 per cent in BSkyB's share price since the beginning of 2014 HSBC believe that once the bidding begins for the [...]
Why Amazon is about to become a first class citizen in the living room April 2, 2014 At 4pm this afternoon Amazon is set to launch its own mystery TV box to finally elevate the retail giant to more than a second class citizen in the video streaming space. During its “update to our video business” Amazon is expected to reveal a way for its users to access Prime Instant Video, formerly [...]
Watchdog under pressure after insurance firm fiasco March 31, 2014 THE CITY watchdog will come under renewed pressure from insurers today demanding urgent action from George Osborne to prevent a repeat of the regulator’s mis-step that led insurance shares to plunge on Friday. The industry will write to the chancellor to raise “serious concerns” about the disclosure of information by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) [...]
Royal Mail float review to back Cable price view March 31, 2014 BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable was right to dismiss calls by some investment banks to value Royal Mail at billions of pounds more than the firm’s eventual float price, the spending watchdog is expected to say this week. The National Audit Office (NAO) will tomorrow publish the findings of its investigation into the government’s privatisation of [...]
RBS close to hiring Credit Suisse banker as its new finance chief March 31, 2014 STATE-BACKED RBS is thought to be in advanced talks to poach Credit Suisse banker Ewen Stevenson as its new finance chief. The bailed-out bank is expected to make an announcement within days, according to sources cited by Sky News. The appointment, which is subject to approval by the Prudential Regulation Authority, will end a search [...]