Eurozone on track for 2014 recovery despite retail hit February 5, 2014 THE EUROZONE’S economy has enjoyed a strong start to the year, business surveys revealed yesterday, despite separate figures pointing to a disastrous December period for the currency bloc’s retailers. Output in the euro area economy grew at its fastest rate since June 2011 last month, according to Markit’s widely-regarded purchasing managers’ index (PMI). However, Brussels [...]
No end for PPI claims as cutoff date is ruled out February 4, 2014 CUTTING short the PPI scandal by imposing a deadline on compensation claims would hurt victims of the crisis, Martin Wheatley said yesterday. Banks are still unveiling higher and higher estimates of the final cost of the redress payments as the flow of claims from customers shows no sign of ending. But the chief of the [...]
Real Good Food Company struck by slump in sugar prices in EU February 4, 2014 INGREDIENTS supplier The Real Good Food Company said trading had been mixed in the third quarter of the year as strong earnings across three of its businesses was offset by a “dramatic” fall in sugar prices in the European Union. Executive chairman Pieter Totte said market conditions had been challenging and that its specialist sugar [...]
Profits slide at recruiter SThree but firm hires more sales staff February 3, 2014 SHARES in recruitment firm SThree sank 5.08 per cent yesterday after the white-collar specialist posted a 17 per cent slide in annual profits to £21m. The company said a tough jobs market in its core IT and finance businesses weighed on its results, though this was offset by growth in new offices overseas. Earnings in [...]
We mustn’t delude ourselves about the scale of the crisis Britain went through February 3, 2014 OVER the past three years, the debate over the coalition’s deficit reduction plan and the sluggishness of the subsequent recovery has dominated the agenda. On almost all sides, this debate has been framed in a way that implies that, had we adopted marginally different policies, the fallout from the crash need not have been anywhere [...]
Slashing prices hit Ryanair hard February 3, 2014 Europe's largest budget airline Ryanair has suffered a worse than expected loss for the third quarter to 31 December. The low-cost airline has posted a loss of €35m (£28.7m), against analysts estimates of €32m. The results are a far cry from the €18.1m of profit seen a year earlier. But beyond the headline figure there [...]
Blackstone rips past estimates as floats deliver January 30, 2014 WALL Street titan Blackstone shot the lights out with its quarterly results yesterday, shattering analysts’ profit expectations after prospering from a bout of multi-billion deals including the UK float of Legoland owner Merlin Entertainments. The group, which offers an array of private equity and real estate funds for the world’s biggest investors, said pre-tax profits [...]
Ukraine prime minister Azarov resigns January 28, 2014 With Ukrainian MPs set to vote on scrapping a new anti-protest law this morning – in response to the continuing unrest in the country – news that prime minister Mykola Azarov has resigned has just broken. According to Ukraine's government website, the press service of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has reported Azarov's resignation. He said [...]
CNBC Comment: Davos cynics miss its true relevance January 28, 2014 IT’S EASY to be hysterical or snarky about the annual gathering of chief executives, politicians, economists and “thought leaders” at the World Economic Forum in Davos (which begins this week) – particularly if you’re not going. Plenty of conspiracy theorists suspect that the world’s elite is gathering in this small Swiss town to plan the [...]
Google snaps up London start up in £400m deal January 28, 2014 GOOGLE has paid £400m to take control of a London-based tech company co-founded by former chess prodigy and neuroscientist Demis Hassabis. DeepMind Technologies, which was set up by Hassabis and colleagues Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman in 2011, will work on research and development projects in artificial intelligence, which could one day be used in [...]