Bidding war on the cards as Just Eat rejects £4.9bn hostile bid from Prosus October 22, 2019 Just Eat could find itself at the centre of a bidding war after rejecting a hostile £4.9bn bid from investment firm Prosus that threatens to disrupt its merger with Takeaway.com. The firm’s share price leapt 24 per cent to 732.8p despite the rejection in favour of its £8.3bn tie-up with the Dutch Takeaway.com as a [...]
Amazon eyed buying Waitrose but was held off by John Lewis Partnership May 6, 2018 Amazon considered an acquisition of Waitrose last year, but was blocked from entering formal talks, reports suggest. A senior executive at the online shopping giant’s UK arm pushed for a meeting with the John Lewis Partnership but was “shut down” by the board, the Sunday Times reported today. The tech company’s acquisition of Whole Foods [...]
Sir Richard Branson set to launch Virgin Galactic float on Monday October 24, 2019 Sir Richard Branson has announced that he is planning to float his space venture Virgin Galactic on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. Branson said he hoped to be there to ring the bell himself as his space flight company becomes the first to go public next week. Read more: Boeing invests $20m in [...]
Phonebooth startup Room launches in UK as it dials in to coworking boom September 17, 2019 Room, the US startup specialising in phonebooths for open plan offices, launched in the UK today as it looks to cash in on the rising popularity of coworking spaces. The New-York based firm, which counts Google, Uber, Amazon and Apple among its clients, is also rolling out in six other European countries amid growing demand [...]
Hey up, Siri: BBC to launch ‘Beeb’ voice assistant that recognises regional accents August 27, 2019 The BBC is preparing to launch a digital voice assistant next year that will be trained to recognise different regional accents from across the UK. The new assistant will not be a hardware device, but will be built into the BBC’s website and will also work across smart speakers, TVs and mobile phones. Read more: [...]
BBC wins battle for social media buzz as streaming giants lag behind December 11, 2019 Traditional broadcasters such as the BBC and ITV are winning the battle to create a buzz around new shows, as they generate more social media chatter than their streaming rivals. Figures published today by market research firm Kantar revealed that the BBC generated more tweets than any other broadcaster in the year to the end [...]
BritBox launches in the UK – but can it challenge Netflix? November 7, 2019 BritBox, the new streaming service from the BBC and ITV, has launched in the UK this morning as broadcasters attempt to muscle in on the lucrative online television market. The platform, which announced this morning that it would also feature content from Channel 4 and Channel 5, is entering a crowded market, with market leaders [...]
France passes digital services tax despite US investigation July 11, 2019 France has given final approval to a new digital services tax on tech giants, despite protests from the US that the move unfairly targets American companies. The three per cent levy will apply to digital revenue earned in France by multinational tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Amazon. Read more: France will tax Amazon [...]
How important is work-life balance to employees? March 16, 2020 Employers who want to attract more job applicants – particularly younger ones – should talk about their work-life balance policies when recruiting, suggests research by Shainaz Firfiray. Dr Firfiray’s experimental study involving 189 MBA students aged between 26 and 40 found that people were more likely to apply for a job that promised flexibility than [...]
Boots owner Walgreens exploring taking pharmacy chain private November 5, 2019 Walgreens Boots Alliance has been exploring whether to go private following private equity interest in the US pharmacy chain, which has a market value of more than $55bn, according to people familiar with the matter. In recent months, Walgreens has held preliminary discussions with some of the world’s largest private equity firms about putting together [...]