What the other papers say this morning – 23 January 2014 January 22, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Microsoft to shield users’ data Microsoft will allow foreign customers to have their personal data stored on servers outside the US, breaking ranks with other big technology groups that until now have shown a united front in response to the American surveillance scandal. Just Eat gears up for £900m IPO London’s start-up cluster [...]
Cream of the crop: Gu founder James Averdieck talks Australia and rural fantasy September 28, 2014 It's the kind of story you wouldn’t necessarily believe: someone cooked up the idea of a chocolatey pudding company while sitting in a coffee shop in Belgium, eating brioche. But for James Averdieck, founder of Gu, that’s exactly what happened. Back in 2003, he was a marketer for dairy company St Ivel, working in Belgium [...]
Thinking bigger: My Voucher Codes founder Mark Pearson talks Fern Britton and young tech entrepreneurs November 16, 2014 While we’re talking, it suddenly dawns on Mark Pearson that it’s his company’s eighth birthday. “It’s definitely around now,” he laughs, raising his empty plastic water cup in the air. In June of this year, Pearson sold My Voucher Codes, as part of his parent company Markco Media, to global mobile money technology provider [...]
Chef Ana Morris of Islington restaurant LeCoq presents her recipe for burnt chicken and chilli spatchcock chicken December 9, 2014 Ana Morris, the chef of Islington’s favourite rotisserie chicken restaurant LeCoq, on how to unite a community using only a spit and some good quality birds from Suffolk. Sisters Ana and Sanja Morris opened LeCoq last year in Islington. Since, the restaurant has flourished and become a firm local fixture. We speak to chef Ana to [...]
Fintech kings talk starting from scratch, old clients and handing businesses a lifeline October 12, 2014 In Holborn last week, a three year-old London-based company held a party to celebrate reaching £250m of business since its inception. If that doesn’t sound impressive, by the time the event was held, MarketInvoice was already nearing £270m. “We seriously underestimated repeat usage,” says co-founder and chief executive Anil Stocker. “Companies see how the platform [...]
Indulge in Pippa Middleton’s favourite pastime in Oslo September 26, 2014 What do you think Pippa Middleton’s secret is? Cross-fit? Pilates, maybe? Wrong: cross country skiing. The Duchess of Cambridge’s sporty sister took on the infamous nordic skiing marathon at Vasaloppet in 2012, taking seven hours and thirteen minutes to complete the 90km course. Anyone who does that is going to be in the best shape [...]
From cut-price gym fees to stop-smoking programmes: The dark side of staff health schemes October 22, 2014 Remember the look of successful businessmen of the past? With a self-satisfied grin and a greasy face, they’d sit down to enjoy a fine meal, with a swollen gut testing the strength of their belt. To no one’s dismay, these rounded figures have largely disappeared from the corporate scene. Still, we shouldn’t be overenthusiastic about [...]
Co-op shelves plans for online grocery service August 8, 2014 THE CO-OPERATIVE Group has shelved plans to join its rivals and launch an online grocery service just months after unveiling a plan to turn around its embattled food business. The mutual began trialling click-and-collect service – where customers can pick up groceries ordered online – at a store in Stockport in November, but has now [...]
Saga tests water with customers for market float January 20, 2014 SAGA, the over-50s insurer, has appointed Bank of America Merrill Lynch to help plot a share offering for its 2.7m customers as part of a mooted £3bn stock market float. The cruise ship specialist, which is led by boss Andrew Goodsell, will test the water with customers this week to gauge interest in the plan [...]
Sport Comment: World Cup has been huge credibility boost for women’s rugby August 17, 2014 IT IS the nature of our sporting world that football is the rich man from whose table every other sport has to eat the scraps, and so amid all the hoopla in the week of the resumption of the Premier League it has been particularly bad luck for English cricket and British athletics that their [...]