THE BEST LAID PLANS OF SOME ENTREPRENEURS January 22, 2012 JOHN, Jeremy and Joan had a plan. A good plan. A plan to start a business. They were so sure that the business would succeed that each used £100,000 of their own money to fund the start-up costs and take the inevitable losses until they turned the corner into profit. Their hunch was right, and [...]
Bridgepoint confirms deal to buy Quilter January 24, 2012 PRIVATE equity firm Bridgepoint yesterday signed its deal to buy Quilter, the wealth management business owned by Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, for an undisclosed sum expected to be more than £170m. This comes just weeks after Bridgepoint bought online cycling shop Wiggle for €210m (£175.2m) in late 2011 – a year which saw the private [...]
Bank of America agrees $315m Merrill Lynch settlement December 6, 2011 Bank of America has agreed to pay $315m to settle claims from investors who said they were misled by Merrill Lynch when they bought mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis. The settlement is one of the highest ever agreed against a bank over the mis-selling of the securities, which were shown to [...]
MEDIA EXEC BRINGS £1M PERUVIAN BID TO SOHO February 20, 2012 MARTIN MORALES was headhunted by Apple as one of the four founders of iTunes Europe and sat on the board of The Walt Disney Company. But Ceviche, the Peruvian restaurant behind a plain black door at 17 Frith Street in Soho, is his life’s work. Since leaving Disney in July 2011, the half-Peruvian Morales has [...]
MEDIA EXEC BRINGS £1M PERUVIAN BID TO SOHO February 20, 2012 MARTIN MORALES was headhunted by Apple as one of the four founders of iTunes Europe and sat on the board of The Walt Disney Company. But Ceviche, the Peruvian restaurant behind a plain black door at 17 Frith Street in Soho, is his life’s work. Since leaving Disney in July 2011, the half-Peruvian Morales has [...]
PROPERTY NEWS December 22, 2011 SAVILE ROW LEASE SOLD TO JOINT VENTURE Great Portland Estates has exchanged contracts to sell the long leasehold interest in 28/29 Savile Row to a joint venture between Aerium Finance and Allied London for £16.25m. The deal, which works out at £1,017 a square foot, is for a basement, ground and five upper floors. The [...]
UK house prices in downward trend June 7, 2011 HOUSE prices rose just 0.1 per cent in May, the latest Halifax index revealed yesterday, barely recovering from a sharp 1.4 per cent drop in April. The underlying decline in prices was shown by a 1.2 per cent fall in the three-monthly measure, which irons out some of the monthly volatility in the figures. Prices [...]
M&A to dine out next year December 11, 2011 BRITAIN’S restaurants and bars sector is expected to enjoy a resurgence in mergers and acquisitions next year, thanks to a pick-up in private equity demand, a report by the accountancy firm BDO has revealed. While sales across the industry are predicted to remain subdued, top high street chains such as Yo! Sushi, Pizza Express and [...]
3i lining up bid for Edinburgh Airport December 18, 2011 PRIVATE equity house 3i has lined up a bid to buy Edinburgh airport from BAA. London-listed 3i, whose investments have been buffeted by global turmoil, has joined forces with pension fund manager the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) and fund manager M&G to make an offer. Any deal would be done through the separately listed 3i [...]
There’s no let up in City’s race to consolidate January 9, 2012 IT seems there is going to be no slackening of the consolidation process taking place in the financial advisory sector. Evolution has already been swallowed up by Investec, with fairly unpleasant consequences for many of its employees; Collins Stewart Hawkpoint is busy sorting out the finer details of its deal with the Canadian group Canaccord, [...]