Unilever set to axe 800 jobs and close four British plants June 14, 2012 ABOUT 800 British jobs will be lost after consumer goods giant Unilever said it would close four plants. The firm, which produces brands including PG Tips tea, Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream and Brylcreem, will move some jobs to India and to its historic home of Port Sunlight on Merseyside. It has announced plans to close its hair care [...]
InterContinental names Cescau as chairman May 25, 2012 Unilever veteran Patrick Cescau is to become the new chairman of the world’s biggest hotelier InterContinental Hotels Group at the beginning of next year following the retirement of the 67-year old David Webster. French born Cescau, aged 63, spent 35 years working for the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods giant culminating in his role as chief executive [...]
FTSE rises fuelled by miners May 22, 2012 The FTSE 100 picked up again this morning as some of last week’s losses were recouped. Hopes that Eurozone leaders were making progress as they tackled the debt mountain engulfing the bloc helped sentiment. One of the ideas to save struggling economies is to issue eurobonds. But an OECD report warned that the fragile global [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS May 21, 2012 DFJ Esprit The cross-stage venture capital firm has appointed Peter Keen as its a new venture partner, specialising in medtech and life science investments. Keen joins with 28 years’ experience in the sector. He was co-founder of Chriscience Group, chief financial officer of Arakis, and is currently non-executive director of Horizon Discovery and Q-Chip. Jefferies [...]
Evidence of revolt at every single level May 20, 2012 THE shareholder spring has sprung. Since proxy season started, we’ve become accustomed to the sight of investors giving directors a bloody nose. I’ve decided to crunch the numbers to see just how rebellious the buy side has become. A win is a win. Just three firms have been voted down at their annual meetings in [...]
Thai food giant mulls £2.5bn Birds Eye offer May 13, 2012 A THAI food firm has emerged as the latest suitor in the £2.5bn battle for the frozen foods group behind Birds Eye. Charoen Pokphand Foods, Thailand’s largest agribusiness firm, is preparing a bid for Iglo, which has been put up for sale by buyout firm Permira. The first deadline for bids was on Thursday when [...]
Investors back StanChart pay May 9, 2012 STANDARD Chartered headed off a shareholder revolt over director pay yesterday despite criticism from advisory group Pirc. Only 7.4 per cent of shareholders voted against the bank’s remuneration report even though Pirc said last week that the award for the head of the investment bank, Mike Rees, was too high. Standard Chartered notched up a [...]
FTSE rise fuelled by solid earnings May 3, 2012 The FTSE 100 pushed higher in early deals, recovering some of the previous session’s falls as investors turned their attention to a European Central Bank (ECB) meeting and tomorrow’s key US jobs report. ECB chiefs meet today after a week in which a string of bleak economic data, including manufacturing figures, has cast a shadow. [...]
Unilever sales lifted by price hikes and emerging markets April 26, 2012 CONSUMER goods giant Unilever beat forecasts with an 8.4 per cent rise in first-quarter sales yesterday, helped by price hikes and emerging market growth. The Anglo-Dutch maker of brands like Dove and Knorr is battling high input costs from rising commodity prices such as crude and vegetable oils, and slow growth in developed nations. It [...]
Bumper results lift FTSE higher April 26, 2012 BRITAIN’S top shares pushed higher yesterday, notching up a third session of gains as investors digested a big bag of blue chip results, with advances in oil majors outweighing a heavy fall in drugs firm AstraZeneca. The FTSE 100 index closed up 29.83 points, or 0.5 per cent, at 5,748.72 after a choppy session, continuing [...]