Last Week in the City: England has an 8.5% chance of winning the World Cup May 18, 2018 Garry White, chief investment commentator, looks at the market-moving events that have shaped the UK equity markets this week (14 to 18 May 2018). UBS has used its City analysts’ predictive firepower to try and work out the winner of the upcoming World Cup in Russia – and England came surprisingly high in its league [...]
Mastercard and Visa see UK legal claims from high street names mount over interchange fees June 25, 2017 MASTERCARD and Visa are facing legal claims that could top £1bn as a raft of high street names pool their resources in a battle with the credit card giants over fees. At the start of this month, litigation claims were launched by 27 high-street retailers, supermarkets, pubs and bookmakers over “multilateral interchange fees”, or charges [...]
Peter Dubens firm Oakley Capital snaps up software firm Plesk in $105m deal May 2, 2017 Oakley Capital, the Aim-quoted firm that listed Time Out magazine, today announced it has completed a $105m (£81m) deal to buy software platform firm Plesk. Started in 1999, Plesk was launched in the US after being designed in Russia. It was bought by Washington-based firm Parallels in 2003. Today’s deal sees Oakley Capital carve out [...]
Topshop logistics workers are going on strike February 15, 2017 Workers at a Topshop logistics centre are set to on strike over wages. Employees at sites in Solihull and Leeds have voted to walk out on 24 February and 26 February. The action comes after staff at the Solihull hub went on strike in the run up to Christmas. Read more: Flopshop: Arcadia Group brand Topshop's sales [...]
John Lewis, Pret and the 30 biggest private companies MPs want held more accountable February 12, 2017 Middle class favourite John Lewis and lunch time hotsport Pret a Manger are just two of Britain's most well-known businesses which could be subject to a stricter code of governance traditionally reserved for Britain's top public companies. Under new proposals suggested by a group of MPs, 30 of Britain's biggest privately owned companies would have to set [...]
Goldman Sachs told Arcadia bosses that Dominic Chappell had a history of bankruptcy May 23, 2016 Top Goldman Sachs banker Anthony Gutman told MPs this evening that his firm warned Arcadia Group over its sale of BHS. Gutman, co-head of investment banking services for Europe, said that Goldman offered informal advice on the sale and highlighted that Retail Acquisitions' Dominic Chappell had a history of bankruptcy. Gutman described his advice over [...]
Institute of Directors boss slams Arcadia chairman over BHS collapse in open letter to MPs June 3, 2016 A day after its collapse, the boss of one of the UK's largest business lobbying organisations has said he "can't defend" the running of BHS – and added that "serious questions need to be asked of almost everybody concerned". In an open letter to MPs Frank Field and Iain Wright, chairs of the Commons Select [...]
After BHS: MPs eye stricter transparency rules for private companies February 12, 2017 The UK's biggest private companies and those with large pension schemes should have to abide by the same financial reporting rules as listed firms to ensure the fallout from the collapse of BHS is not repeated, MPs have said. Any private company with more than 5,000 members of a defined benefit pension scheme, or those defined as large [...]
Advisers tell MPs that BHS needed to be sold by Arcadia group to give it any chance of surviving as a business May 25, 2016 One of the advisers on the sale of BHS has today told MPs that the company needed to be separated from the Arcadia group for it to have a chance of continuing as a viable business. Speaking in front of the Work and Pensions committee and the Business, Innovation and Skills committee, Mark Byers, partner at [...]
Sandwich skills shortage? Pret a Manger boss Andrea Wareham is worried about filling jobs after Brexit March 9, 2017 Brexit may be putting your avocado habit under threat, after the HR boss of Pret a Manger admitted she will struggle to fill jobs if she is only allowed to hire British applicants. At a House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee hearing yesterday, Andrea Wareham said just one in 50 people applying for jobs at the [...]