Co-operative supermarket campaign a winner February 15, 2011 ON this page we often assess the impact that crisis or events have on brands but BrandIndex is more generally used for measuring the success or otherwise of advertising with the daily tracking allowing us to study the initial impact and also the wear-out rate. One of the more interesting campaigns this year has been [...]
Morrisons in £70m deal to join web war February 15, 2011 WM MORRISON yesterday announced that it had finally taken the plunge into online retail, splashing out £70m on baby goods firm Kiddicare. The supermarket giant has so far resisted the move to the web while rivals like Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda see online sales as vital to their financial health. But the purchase of Kiddicare [...]
Micro Focus sees sales stall February 15, 2011 BRITISH IT firm Micro Focus International lost some large deals in the US in its third quarter and said it would not be able to make up the shortfall, sending its shares plunging. The group said US government departments and major corporations on the east coast had scrapped deals to update applications running on mainframe [...]
Morrisons buys baby care website for £70m February 15, 2011 Wm Morrison Supermarkets, the country’s fourth-biggest grocer, is buying online baby products retailer Kiddicare for £70m to kick-start an online business selling non-food goods. Morrison said the deal would give it a technology platform and distribution centre to develop an online non-food business, launching its first products in 2012. The move is part of chief [...]
Mergers are needed to keep bourses in business February 13, 2011 TWO blockbuster stock exchange tie-ups were announced last week, sparking a rush of speculation that others may follow. But what are the forces behind this drive to consolidate, and is it sustainable? On Wednesday, the London Stock Exchangeagreed a merger with Canada’s Toronto Metals Exchange, to establish the world’s biggest trading exchange by listings, with [...]
Dido’s gamble means white flag isn’t likely February 8, 2011 DIDO Harding is a keen racehorse owner whose horse Cool Dawn won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1998. But perhaps the biggest gamble of her career was leaving the sector she had become synonymous with to take the reins at TalkTalk. Harding made her name in supermarkets, first as an executive at Tesco, which she [...]
FTSE shrugs off bank levy tax as it surges to 32-month high February 8, 2011 BRITAIN’S leading share index jumped higher yesterday, ending at levels not seen since May 2008, supported by rallies from banks and miners, and by gains in energy issues following results from BG Group. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was up 40.30 points, or 0.7 per cent at 6,091.33, its fifth gain in the [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS February 8, 2011 SHIRE JP Morgan Cazenove (JPM) rates the pharma group “neutral” with a £16.40 price target. The broker expects revenue growth forecasts of around 12 per cent when the firm reports fourth quarter results tomorrow, along with margin expansion of around 200 basis points. For the quarter, JPM expects revenue of $910m (£565.9m) and core operating [...]
Lawyers are bad at business? Think again February 8, 2011 THIS paper recently ran an article warning that for lawyers “doom is nigh” and that they should shape up or ship out. The context was the Legal Services Act and its welcome shake up of the way in which legal services can be delivered. The article had many solid, good messages: in summary, cutting overheads [...]
FTSE dips as banks come under pressure February 8, 2011 The FTSE 100 dipped this morning despite strong results from Xstrata and BG Group. The index has gained in four out of the last five trading sessions – regularly surpassing the 6,000 barrier, but banking stocks were among the poorest performers today. Commodities dipped as the price of copper came down after a record high [...]