City IPOs: One falls down, four rise to take its place May 22, 2014 Investors keen to be involved in the IPO of clothing chain Fat Face were disappointed last night by news that its float was to be pulled. A regulatory filing submitted this morning shows that "despite a strong level of interaction with and interest from institutional investors, the company and its majority shareholder have decided to [...]
Inside Track: Bankers ponder early holidays as latest IPO is left on the shelf July 2, 2014 THERE was always an inevitability to what is currently happening in London’s new issues market. A spate of issues flooded the market at the beginning of the year, some a touch overvalued. A number of the issues traded down, leaving investors nursing losses and accusing the sellers of assets as being too greedy. Now, not [...]
The artful dodger: Prolific forger Mark Landis gave all his counterfeit paintings away for free July 2, 2015 Mark Landis was 30-years-old and living alone in San Francisco when, on a whim, he decided to become a museum benefactor. “I had been seeing things on TV about wealthy philanthropists giving pictures away to museums in memory of people. I wanted to show my mother that I was doing well, I wanted to show [...]
City ignores critics with rush to float June 16, 2014 LONDON’S fragile new issues market will shrug off the fears of sceptical fund managers this week as two of the country’s biggest employers pull the trigger on multi-billion pound listings. FTSE giant Lloyds Banking Group is expected to lift the bottom level of the price range for the listing of high street offshoot TSB, while [...]
Sky credit rating downgraded following £7bn takeover of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland November 13, 2014 Sky’s long-term corporate credit rating has been cut following the completion of its £7bn takeover of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland yesterday. Standard & Poor’s downgraded Sky’s credit rating from ‘BBB+’ to ‘BBB’ as it estimated the group would raise a “significant amount of debt to part-find the acquisitions”. The credit ratings agency [...]
Record quarter as casino sales lift 888 revenue to all time high of $144m November 4, 2014 Online gaming giant 888 has reported its best performing quarter on record for the period between 1 July and 30 September this year. The company yesterday published its interim results, revealing that its third quarter group revenue hit an all time high of $114m, up 22 per cent year-on-year. A strong performance from the company’s [...]
Tesco is winning at Valentine’s Day. Here’s why February 11, 2015 Valentine's Day is just around the corner and what says love more than multinational retailers pushing their pink heart-shaped products you neither want nor need? Absolutely nothing. That's why between now and Saturday we will all be bombarded with adverts for all the chocolates you can eat (before the cocoa runs out) recipes for two, [...]
From BHS and John Lewis to TSB and the Apple Watch: What got us talking this week? March 13, 2015 Jeremy Clarkson punched a man over a steak. Blurred Lines went from being the song with questionable gender politics to being a Marvin Gaye rip-off. And somewhere above our heads, a pilot got bored and drew rude pictures using GPS flight data. Here is what got us talking at City A.M. 1. After 15 [...]
FTSE closes up for a fifth day in spite of volatility in oil firms – London Report December 22, 2014 THE FTSE 100 yesterday held on to gains as its pre-Christmas rally continued for a fifth consecutive trading session. However, oil-related stocks went from being among the best performers in morning trade to among the worst by the close as the oil price again failed to hold on to an early rise. In low trading [...]
Tui confirms German parent company merger December 11, 2014 Holiday company Tui Travel confirmed this morning that it will go ahead with a merger with its €6.5bn (£5bn) German parent, Tui AG, as planned. This morning the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said it had suspended trading at the behest of the company. It will then re-list as Tui AG on 17 December. Between them, [...]