City Moves for 23 August – Who’s switching jobs at Oxford Properties, WH Ireland and Mediconnect? August 23, 2019 Today’s City Moves includes Oxford Properties, WH Ireland and Mediconnect. Oxford Properties Global real estate investor, developer and manager Oxford Properties Group, has announced a series of changes to its leadership team and the appointment of Dean Hopkins as chief operations officer. The changes come at a time of rapid worldwide growth for Oxford, which [...]
Going to party like it’s 1919: Time to celebrate the centenary of some of the UK’s most important companies August 21, 2019 This coming Sunday marks the centenary of an important anniversary. On 25 August 1919, the world’s first daily international scheduled flight took place. There was only one passenger on board the flight between London and Paris, along with cargo which included newspapers, Devonshire cream, jam, and grouse. The carrier was Aircraft Transport and Travel Limited, [...]
Robot delivery service Starship Technologies targets students in $40m raise August 20, 2019 Starship Technologies, a US tech firm headed by former Airbnb exec Lex Bayer, has raised $40m (£33.1m) in a series A funding round. The investment was led by Morpheus Ventures with participation from Shasta Ventures, Matrix Partners, Metaplanet Holdings, TDK Ventures, Qu Ventures and others. Starship’s autonomous robot delivery fleet operates in cities across the [...]
Sainsbury’s shares lifted by strong performance but hottest day fails to revive flagging grocery sales August 20, 2019 Sainsbury’s led FTSE 100 risers this morning following the news the supermarket had put in its strongest performance since November 2017. The supermarket put in the strongest performance of all the big four grocers, but still saw its market share slip 0.6 per cent over the past 12 weeks, according to Kantar data released this [...]
Cheesed off: Watchdog bans two adverts in first crackdown on harmful gender stereotypes August 14, 2019 The advertising watchdog has banned two adverts in its first crackdown on campaigns that feature harmful gender stereotypes. In landmark rulings published today, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) censured Mondelez and Volkswagen following complaints their ads portrayed male and female roles and characteristics in a way that caused offence. Read more: Advertising watchdog bans junk [...]
Squashed: Britvic looks to cut final salary pensions August 11, 2019 Drinks producer Britvic is planning to slash the money it pays out to 6,000 members of its final salary pension scheme. The FTSE 250 firm, which produces Robinsons soft drinks, is looking for court approval to stop measuring inflation according to the retail prices index (RPI), and instead switch to the consumer prices index (CPI). [...]
Recruiters warn City job hunters over old social media posts August 11, 2019 That embarrassing tweet you did and forgot all about five years ago could cost you a top job in the City, recruiters are now warning. Old social media posts could come back to haunt those that made them, with many financial employers starting to scrutinise Twitter and Facebook accounts as part of their jobs-vetting process. [...]
Watchdog tells firms to go ‘above and beyond’ law to co-operate in investigations August 6, 2019 The fraud watchdog has told firms they will need to go “above and beyond what the law requires” if they want to co-operate with its investigations. Guidance of corporate co-operation released by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) states that firms need to be willing to identify any individuals suspected of wrongdoing “regardless of their seniority [...]
Tesco Metro prepares to slash 4,500 jobs August 5, 2019 Tesco is set to slash around 4,500 jobs across all of its 153 Metro stores, the company announced today as it battles with a tough retail environment. The cutbacks will reduce processes and administrative tasks across the stores, it said. Read more: Ocado and M&S share prices drop as they complete £750m online delivery deal [...]
SFO cuts spending on lawyers as conviction rate falls July 28, 2019 The serious fraud office’s (SFO) spending on staff and external counsel fell last year, while its conviction rate crumbled to just over 53 per cent. The figures, released in the SFO’s annual report, show spending on staff fell 2.4 per cent to £30.6m last year, with spending on external counsel dropping 5.7 per cent to [...]