Marks & Spencer is no longer special May 19, 2009 FOR a supposed retail guru, Marks & Spencer boss Sir Stuart Rose is not doing well. His firm is underperforming Tesco, J Sainsbury, Morrisons and Alliance Boots, among others. Yesterday’s grim full year results show that the firm has a lot of hard thinking to do. Its product and pricing mix still isn’t quite right; [...]
CITY BOYS COME UP TRUMPS FOR SIR ALAN’S NEWEST APPRENTICE June 8, 2009 BEADY-eyed Apprentice followers may have noticed a bevy of City boys getting behind the camera last night for a cameo on the final episode of the show. Pelham PR’s Gavin Davis, Alisdair Haythornthwaite and Alex Walters appeared on screen, with Funsho Allu from insurer AIG and freelance hack Jack Dyson, to advise winner Yasmina on [...]
KLEINMAN JOINS SKY AS ANSWER TO BEEB’S BUSINESS EDITOR PESTON May 27, 2009 ROBERT Peston must be quaking in his well-oiled boots. The media rumour mill has been going into overdrive over the past few days as industry veterans gossiped about Sky News launching a bid to up the stakes in its rivalry with the BBC by hiring the Sunday Telegraph’s Mark Kleinman to be its new City [...]
White bags and Burmese rubies: a practical guide to stealth wealth May 18, 2009 THERE was a time, not that long ago, that guests at Nobu would be eager to show that they were raking it in. Expensive bottles of sake would be ordered and placed on the table for all to see. But in these straitened times even the wealthy are less inclined to be seen to spend [...]
…and Terry puts the boot in August 6, 2008 Chelsea captain John Terry has turned the tables on Manchester United by saying they, and not the Blues, are the ones who are past their best. United boss Sir Alex Ferguson sparked a row last month by suggesting Chelsea’s squad was too old to improve on last season, when they finished second to his side [...]
King Fernando 9/2 to reign August 15, 2008 Fernando Torres to be top Premier League goalscorer – 9/2 Fernando Torres is ready to be crowned king of the Premier League goal scoring charts this season, with the Spaniard a stand-out 9/2 punt to take over the mantle held last season by Cristiano Ronaldo. With the Manchester United ace currently sidelined with an ankle [...]
Benitez dragging his heels in transfer saga July 31, 2008 The statement from Aston Villa insisting Gareth Barry will not be leaving the club does nothing but drag an already tedious situation on and on. I really can’t see why they just don’t get on with it. Villa say they have set a deadline but you can’t tell me that, if Liverpool boss Rafa Bentez [...]
How Obama is having an impact on our view of US brands July 28, 2008 There are still those who would separate business and politics. But they are intimately connected. In a study about a year ago using data from YouGov’s BrandIndex and our tracking of attitudes to America, we examined whether the two were correlated. We found that there was indeed a clear link: as opinions of the US [...]
KKR defies the credit crunch with surprise £7.5bn flotation July 28, 2008 The legendary firm of New York buyout experts insists that going public is the best strategy Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the fabled US private equity group, is to go public in a deal which will see it merge with one of its listed funds and float on the New York Stock Exchange. KKR, whose founders include [...]
Boots deal is ‘looking up’ October 28, 2005 Boots chief executive Richard Baker claimed yesterday that investors are warming to the idea of the proposed merger with Alliance UniChem. The proposed £7bn “merger of equals” was met with a lukewarm response by shareholders and ratings agencies when it was announced at the start of this month. However, in the intervening weeks, Baker, chairman [...]