Carphone and Dixons dial up £3.8bn merger May 15, 2014 DIXONS Retail and Carphone Warehouse shares slid into the red yesterday after the high street giants’ plans for a £3.8bn merger was given a mixed reception. The new group, which will be named Dixons Carphone, aims to exploit the ever-growing presence of smartphones in people’s lives and the so-called internet of things – where household [...]
£10bn fortune is music to the ears of media mogul Blavatnik May 14, 2014 BILLIONAIRE and owner of Warner Music Group Len Blavatnik has topped The Sunday Times rich list of the UK’s music millionaires for another year, with £10bn in wealth. Blavatnik has been investing in a host of digital media firms such as France’s Deezer, Spotify, and Beats Music, in which he led a $60m (£35m) financing [...]
Mix it up: The English fizz giving French bubbles a run for their money May 13, 2014 @philip_salter Ideas can change the world. Back in 1776 the Scottish economist Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations, and in the process upended the winner-takes-all, mercantilist vision of international relations. He replaced it with a model of the world in which nations cooperate and prosper through trade. From the ideas of Smith we grew [...]
Why Tuesday is Apple’s favourite day for announcements May 13, 2014 Today could be the day Apple confirms its $3.2bn takeover of Beats Electronics, in fact Apple is more likely to make the announcement today, a Tuesday, than any other day. This is because the iPhone-maker has a record of making its announcements on Tuesdays. In the last 15 months we’ve seen the overwhelming majority of [...]
Bottom Line: Murdoch is a force to be reckoned with May 12, 2014 LAST FRIDAY I sat down and watched a TV programme, on a terrestrial channel, at the scheduled time. It felt like an occasion. Like much of the population, such is the choice of media offered now that conventional TV viewing feels like the last resort; attractive only once the Netflix sub, iPlayer catch-up and YouTube [...]
The EU tax liberation day small print: Why the UK beats flat tax Lithuania May 12, 2014 WHEN I tell you Lithuania has a 15 per cent flat tax rate, does your mouth water at the idea of Britain adopting a similar system? As a former stockbroker who has researched “The Tax Burden of Typical Workers in the EU” for the past five years, I’ve learned to look at tax rates the [...]
What you need to know before the US open May 9, 2014 Stocks futures suggest a lower open for US markets today, rounding off a week of bumpy trading, central bank announcements and ongoing wariness owing to the Ukraine situation. Corporate news Clothes retailer Gap has jumped 8.5 per cent in pre-market trading after announcing a nine per cent increase in comparable sales for April and a [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 09 May 2014 May 8, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Apple in talks for $3.2bn Beats deal Apple will acquire Beats’ streaming music service, which launched this year, and its audio equipment business, which includes its brand of headphones and audio equipment. The Beats management team will report to Mr Cook, sources said. Apple and Beats did not comment. The deal is likely [...]
4 ways Waitrose plans to use technology to outsmart its rivals May 8, 2014 Britain’s upmarket grocer Waitrose’s is trialling an array of new technology and services at its newly opened Swindon store that it hopes will give it the edge over its rivals and lure more customers through its doors. In a presentation to analysts and media last week, managing director Mark Price said the 40,000 square [...]
Carl Icahn laments modest results May 7, 2014 ICAHN Enterprises, the listed holding company controlled by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, yesterday reported a loss for the first quarter of this year. The business, listed on the Nasdaq, said it recorded a net loss of $29m for the three months ending March, versus net income of $277m a year ago. The business invests across [...]