TfL acquires Tube Lines in £310m deal May 9, 2010 TRANSPORT for London (TfL) has purchased Tube Lines for £310m, bringing all of the maintenance on three of London Underground’s lines in-house. The deal now means that the public private partnership (PPP) contract to maintain the Jubilee, Piccadilly and Northern lines will now fall under TfL’s remit. Tube Lines, a subsidiary comprising Amey and Bechtel [...]
Labour’s Khan holds Tooting to chants of “Yes we Khan” May 6, 2010 LABOUR HOLD Swing -3.6% TRANSPORT minister Sadiq Khan last night managed to hold onto his key marginal seat of Tooting in South London dealing a significant blow to Conservative hopes of an overall majority. The junior minister had been earmarked as a potential scalp by the Tories. But in the bellwether seat Khan survived a [...]
High concept meets low aspirations May 6, 2010 Film HOT TUB TIME MACHINE Cert: 15 ** PRESUMABLY the makers of Hot Tub Time Machine started with the title – as titles, and indeed ideas, for high-concept extreme silliness go, it’s a humdinger. What couldn’t be funny about a hot tub that transports you back to the neon-coloured, mullet-sporting 1980s? Hmmm – well, pretty [...]
Underground to review plans April 27, 2010 Chris Bolt, the PPP Arbiter, said yesterday that proposed work by the London Underground cannot be financed as the public transport system cannot afford to pay for it. Bolt also decided to delay financing for Tube Lines so that the London Underground can either demonstrate how it intends to pay for work valued at £4.46bn [...]
BACON TOP OF THE CROP OF RICH LIST HEDGIES April 22, 2010 IT’S been rich pickings indeed for the hedge fund community this year, if leaked information from the Sunday Times Rich List’s rundown of the wealthiest hedgies in town is anything to go by. Apart from two individuals whose wealth has stayed the same over the past year (Nat Rothschild at Atticus and Steven Heinz at [...]
Airlines hit by £1.1bn losses in shutdown April 21, 2010 THE International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated the airline industry had been hit by $1.7bn (£1.1bn) in total losses due to the Icelandic volcano disruption. IATA director general and chief executive Giovanni Bisignani estimated that at worst, the six-day flight ban hit 29 per cent of global aviation and affected up to 1.2m passengers a [...]
LISTED PRODUCT NEWS April 21, 2010 FIRST LISTING FOR RBS’S ETC PLATFORM Standard Commodities, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s exchange-traded commodities (ETC) platform, launched its first product on the Frankfurt Xetra stock exchange this week. Its physical gold ETC gives investors exposure to the performance of the London gold market fix price and the ETC is denominated in euros. The ETC [...]
UK fly ban criticised as an over-reaction April 20, 2010 LAST night’s decision by the authorities to re-open Britain’s airspace was yesterday criticised by the aviation industry and London Mayor Boris Johnson for being “too little, too late.” The six day suspension has left hundreds of thousands stranded and caused severe damage to the economy. British Airways chief executive, Willie Walsh, said he was pleased [...]
New cloud casts doubt on flights April 19, 2010 A NEW ash cloud erupting from the Icelandic volcano has endangered plans to reopen British airspace. Major carriers had planned to operate long haul departures and short haul flights scheduled to fly after 7pm in a bid to help stranded passengers. But last night hopes faded as a ferocious new blast of volcanic ash drifted [...]
Navy could rescue travellers April 18, 2010 DRASTIC plans were hastily drawn up yesterday to help return at least 150,000 Britons stranded by the Icelandic volcano to the UK. Government ministers say the Navy could be recruited to ferry thousands of Britons who have been grounded by the fine cloud of ash belched over vast swathes of Europe. Some estimates place the [...]