Chairman leaves Mitchells & Butlers July 14, 2011 MITCHELLS & BUTLERS has lost its third chairman in 18 months after the company announced yesterday that Simon Burke will stand down just five months into the role. Burke’s resignation is yet another round of musical chairs at the pub group following months of warfare between the company and some of its biggest shareholders, which [...]
Snow excuse for low retail sales January 9, 2011 Retailers mostly overcame the December blizzards to post respectable sales figures, business advisory group BDO said yesterday. Despite the coldest December for 100 years, sales dropped by just half a per cent. And some stores, such as John Lewis, reported healthy sales growth. Fears of products being snowed into factories failed to materialise, as non [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS EDITED BY JULIET SAMUEL February 14, 2011 Mazars The law firm has appointed a national head of tax in the UK: Tim Davies (pictured). He has been at the firm for four years, advising on a range of clients. He will now head up a practice of more than 200 professionals in tax. Previously, he worked at advisory firms PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & [...]
Online sales boost for House of Fraser January 9, 2011 UK department store House of Fraser saw same store sales jump 8.5 per cent in the five weeks to 8 January, reinforcing the success of multi-brand retailers over the Christmas period. It follows similar results last week from the John Lewis Partnership, which saw sales up 8.9 per cent compared to last year. But House [...]
Retail sales rise in early week trade ahead of big freeze December 19, 2010 JOHN Lewis and Waitrose enjoyed near-record sales last week, despite the disruption of the snow. Waitrose admitted that sales were down on Saturday by 11 per cent, but a surge in spending earlier in the week more than made up for the effects of the weather. “From Monday onwards customers took the weather forecast seriously [...]
Murdoch tabloid in fresh blow July 4, 2011 A PRIVATE detective working for News of the World hacked into murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s mobile phone while police were searching for her in March 2002, a lawyer for her family said yesterday. Mark Lewis, solicitor at Taylor Hampton, said police had told the parents of Milly Dowler that Glenn Mulcaire illegally accessed and deleted [...]
RECLUSIVE TYCOONS VIEW €35M SHOW BOAT September 5, 2011 WHAT TO do when there are simply no luxury yachts on the market you want to buy? Easy – start your own yacht business and build your own, as Richard Beattie did when he discovered an alarming lack of “contemporary 21st-century superyachts” for sale. “I fully expected to just go and buy one I liked, [...]
Labour goes to war over living costs February 28, 2011 THE squeeze on middle earners exploded into a political battle yesterday, after Labour leader Ed Miliband accused the government of imposing a “cost of living crisis for ordinary families… for years to come.” The Conservatives hit back, attacking Labour for causing “the deepest recession since the war” while leading the UK to a record annual [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS February 6, 2011 Pinsent Masons The law firm has appointed Barry Vitou (pictured) to its dispute resolution team. He joins the firm from the London office of US firm Winston & Strawn, where he headed its regulatory and tech practice. He will be working with Danvers Baillieu, a senior associate advising on online and tech business issues. Vitou [...]
John Lewis sales hike fuelled by World Cup June 11, 2010 JOHN Lewis has posted a 20.6 per cent hike in sales in the week to 5 June compared with the same time last year. The chain saw sales of £54m, it said in a trading statement which attributed the rise to sales of sportswear stoked by the World Cup. The employee-owned firm, which is seen [...]