The man who is set to bring more luxury to London’s five-star hotels November 14, 2010 LONDON’S five-star hotel market is set to take off over the next six months and a septuagenarian Maltese businessman called Alfred Pisani will be at the heart of the glamorous action. His £300m luxury Corinthia Hotel London, on Whitehall Place, is being completed and will take its first paying guests in April 2011. It is [...]
The commercial property king who says the City is ready for take-off November 2, 2010 Land Securities’ chief executive leaps from behind his desk, bounding across his seventh floor office overlooking Trafalgar Square as he welcomes City A.M. – after years of stagnation, the country’s biggest property developer is on the move again – and it certainly seems to have put a spring in Francis Salway’s step. Last week, the FTSE [...]
The housebuilder who is ready to take the long road back to recovery October 31, 2010 DESPITE the generally depressed state of the housebuilding and residential property market, Taylor Wimpey’s chief executive Peter Redfern says he is pretty pleased with business. But sitting in the boardroom of his London office, his mood appears more reflective than upbeat. “Prices are very stable at the moment,” says Redfern. “Stable is good for us. [...]
No cure for cancer and no jetpacks: the twenty-first century is a bust October 24, 2010 BUSINESS FEATURES EDITOR PULLING a dollar from his wallet, Peter Thiel, the 43-year old co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, flaps it to make his point: “Giving people freedom with money is really something deep and fundamental. Government may still have a monopoly on printing these notes, but so long as you [...]
Spending Review Reaction October 20, 2010 THE GILTS EXPERT Killik & Co provides advisory services to private investors of all sizes. It offers advice on a wide range of financial matters, including CFDs, equities, fixed income markets and funds of funds INVESTMENT STRATEGIST PATRICK GORDON “The gilts market reaction has been fairly muted to the spending review although we did see [...]
The defence industry boss who is reshaping his firm for new realities September 28, 2010 FOR Cobham’s chief executive Andy Stevens, life is measured out in five-year plans. The head of the FTSE 100 defence company first joined the business in 2003 as head of its aerospace division and played a key role in the 2005 strategic review that “took a root a branch look at our operations and decided [...]
Lurking behind the financial crisis: the Fed puppeteer and the trader September 27, 2010 I WANTED it to be like that Quentin Tarantino movie: every person should come away with a different picture. I wanted to almost do it with no judgment.” Andrew Ross Sorkin is in London for the Samuel L Johnson literary awards after Too Big To Fail, his best-selling account of the financial crisis, was short-listed [...]
The housebuilding chief executive who can see clear blue skies ahead September 26, 2010 FOR A MAN who took over a housebuilder in the middle of a devastating financial and property crisis, David Ritchie, the chief executive of Bovis Homes, looks remarkably relaxed. But it is certainly fair to say the pain has eased in recent months for the firm, even though Ritchie remains in the middle of turning [...]
The airline boss with a hit list of 12 bid targets in his desk drawer September 13, 2010 It is clear that British Airways (BA) chief executive Willie Walsh always likes to keep his foot hard on the pedal. The Dublin-born airline boss is in the middle of a bitter 18-month dispute with his cabin crew, and only a few weeks ago received US and European regulatory clearance to pursue a transatlantic tie-up [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 6, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES HIRING RATES ARE FLAT IN THE UK Employers expect a “static” rate of recruitment for the remainder of this year, according to new research, underlining concerns about the momentum of economic recovery. The survey of 2,100 employers by Manpower, the recruitment company, is likely to intensify debate on whether the private sector can [...]