Eurozone sales improve in May July 4, 2012 Shoppers in the Eurozone spent a little more freely in May, but not enough to make up for big falls in retail trade the month before and sales were down sharply on a yearly basis as households struggle through the bloc’s debt crisis. Sales at shops in the 17 countries sharing the euro rose 0.6 [...]
The Barclays number three who got the wrong idea about Libor July 3, 2012 BARCLAYS’ newly appointed chief operating officer Jerry del Missier followed his chief executive Bob Diamond and resigned from the bank yesterday in the wake of the interest rate-rigging scandal. Barclays said he will leave with immediate effect. He is thought to be the executive mentioned by the FSA as having misunderstood the Bank of England’s [...]
US stocks gain in thin trading before holiday July 3, 2012 US stocks extended a rally for a third day in a shortened trading session yesterday as sharp gains in oil prices lifted energy shares and traders factored in increased expectations for central bank stimulus. A raft of weak economic data has raised hopes that the European Central Bank will cut interest rates to a record [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS July 2, 2012 Kingfisher Karen Witts will join the home retailer’s board as finance director in October. She is currently finance chief for Africa, Middle East, Asia and Asia Pacific at Vodafone, and is also a non-executive director of Wolseley. Witts worked at BT Group for more than 10 years, most recently as finance head for BT Retail. [...]
Apple pays out $60m to settle iPad trademark dispute July 2, 2012 Royal Mail has increased annual profits and said that its core postal business is also back in the black for the first time in four years. The delivery service made a profit of £23m on revenues of £7.2bn, up from a loss of £120m last year. The business, which delivers to 29m UK addresses, says [...]
WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 27, 2012 LDC The private equity house has announced that Keith Holdt has been appointed as investor director in its value enhancement group. He joins from Swiss Post Solutions, where he was head of global business development and sales. Holdt previously spent eight years with IBM. Lloyds Banking Group Andrew Bester has been appointed chief executive, wholesale [...]
Ocado says sales hit by Jubilee June 26, 2012 Online supermarket Ocado said trade in its third quarter was disrupted by celebrations to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee as it posted a 4.5 per cent rise in underlying first half earnings. “The third quarter is particularly hard to forecast as we have already seen some disruption from the Jubilee events, and there is [...]
Touch-down in Shanghai: getting ready for business June 24, 2012 MAKING my way across Shanghai following a 12 hour flight from London and a six hour flight from Boston left me urgently desirous of a tranquil bedroom, soft bed and a deep bath. As I was heading to the Four Seasons, I figured the only obstacle to achieving these would be traffic – an elegantly [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS June 18, 2012 Duncan Lawrie Jane Parry has been appointed to the UK board of Duncan Lawrie Private Bank. She joined the business a year ago and is now director, head of marketing and new business development. Parry started her banking career at Barclays, where she became marketing director of Premier banking in 2006. She has also held [...]
Selling off unproductive assets is liberating music to a capitalist’s ears June 18, 2012 AFTER close to six years of marriage, my wife and I have finally merged our CD collections. As we don’t own a CD player, we realised that we didn’t need two copies of many albums we both own. Plus, she assured me that, if we get divorced, I would get to keep them anyway. I [...]