Fashion chain Hobbs winds up sister label NW3 after £1.9m loss September 7, 2014 Hobbs’ trendy NW3 fashion line is to disappear by the end of the year as part of chairman Phil Wrigley’s turnaround plan for the loss-making group. The former New Look boss, who joined Hobbs in January, is leading a restructuring of the retailer after it suffered a £1.9m loss last year and saw sales slump [...]
Christmas in London: Start planning your festive season November 20, 2014 As usual, London will be buzzing over the Christmas period. Here’s our selection of the best seasonal activities Swedish Christmas at Fika Head to Brick Lane for a Christmas dinner with a Scandinavian difference. Swedish bar and kitchen Fika is offering a traditional Scandi Christmas dinner from 1-23 December. The small, independent restaurant [...]
Royal Mail profit hit amid fierce UK competition May 21, 2015 ONGOING brutal competition and declining letter volumes led to plunging profits at Royal Mail as Britain’s oldest delivery service continued to seek further savings. Admitting the trading environment “remains challenging”, Royal Mail reported stagnant revenue growth for the year ending 29 March, at £9.3bn. The top-line figures come as the company recorded a four per [...]
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus: Release date in China, India, eastern Europe, South Africa and 36 more countries revealed by Apple October 13, 2014 The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will be available in another 36 countries by the end of the month, Apple has announced, the fastest ever roll out of any of its devices. The new smartphones will go on sale in the majority of countries in eastern Europe as well as large – and potentially [...]
2015 ticks off to a good start January 28, 2015 Richemont’s finest came to SIHH with some horological humdingers Wandering the lofty, beige halls of the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) inside Geneva Airport’s cavernous Palexpo complex – “probably the most luxurious trade fair in the world” – the seeming neutrality of its colour-scheme belies the horological hierarchy at play here. Unlike the [...]
Q & A: Could we see a second general election before christmas? May 7, 2015 Q Who decides when the UK holds its General Elections? A Prime Ministers used to be able to call a General Election whenever they wanted. But new legislation enacted in 2011, called the Fixed-term Parliaments Act (FTPA), changed that. The FTPA stipulates that General Elections are held every five years, on the first Thursday in May. [...]
London Bridge travel disruption: Everything Thameslink, Southeastern, Overground and Southern service commuters need to know December 2, 2014 Most commuters who travel to London Bridge are already used to stuffy train carriages, infuriating delays, slow trawls through crowded platforms and queues for ticket machines. Yet it could all be about to get even more stressful due to the next phase of a massive Network Rail rebuilding project at London Bridge mainline station [...]
Debenhams share price dips as 21 per cent fall in profits revealed October 23, 2014 Debenhams' share price opened lower this morning, after the retailer revealed a 20.6 per cent fall in pre-tax profit for the last year. Over the 12 months to August 30, the department store chain saw underlying pre-tax profit drop to £110.3m, in line with expectations, while reported pre-tax profit fell 23.9 per cent to [...]
Oil prices at rock bottom: Shares in energy companies plummet – should you purge your portfolio? August 26, 2015 Oil prices have fallen to their lowest levels since the financial crisis. The price of Brent crude went down to $42 a barrel earlier this week, before recovering a little. The news is shocking because, when oil prices were first slashed from over $100 a barrel to around $50 last June – due to the fact that [...]
Pizza Express takes a slice out of home market March 9, 2015 Pizza Express yesterday reported strong half-year trading with like-for-like sales ahead by 6.8 per cent in the 28 week period to 11 January 2015. Chief executive Richard Hodgson said the restaurant chain’s strong performance is down to new openings, continuous innovation and a record Christmas trading period, which saw like-forlike growth of 11.2 per cent [...]