Frankie & Benny’s owner expanding May 15, 2014 Restaurant Group, known for its Chiquito and Frankie & Benny’s chains, said yesterday it was on track for a strong first-half performance after a healthy rise in sales. The group, which last month named managing director Danny Breithaupt as its new chief executive after long-serving boss Andrew Page retired, said sales at outlets open over [...]
Punch Taverns waiver agreed April 30, 2014 Owners of Punch Taverns’ bonds yesterday agreed to waive a looming covenant deadline, allowing restructuring talks to continue without the imminent threat of default on the debts. The waiver depends on Punch starting its overhaul by 30 June. The pub firm is grappling with debts of £2.3bn, and had an earlier proposal for restructuring turned [...]
John O’Groats: Scotland’s tip top scenic spot June 27, 2014 If ever there was a place where the buildings should huddle together for warmth it was here, but the roughly strewn archipelago of bungalows stand apart from each other, slightly standoffish in their brown pebbledash. John O’Groats is a strange place, twinned in everybody’s imagination with another strange place, Land’s End. I asked drinkers in [...]
Portugal banking crisis rocks markets as Espirito Santo share price plummets July 10, 2014 The spectre of a renewed Eurozone crisis reared its head yesterday, hitting shares and bond markets, as fears deepened over the future of Portugal’s biggest listed bank, Espirito Santo. Investors have lost faith in the troubled lender, fearing its assets are overvalued, while its parent group has missed a debt repayment. Portugal is barely out [...]
Focus On… The City: residential is finally taking off in the Square Mile September 5, 2014 When it comes to residential developments, the Square Mile has a bit of an image problem. The ancient financial heart of the City of London has been abuzz with business for 1,000 years and it’s still graced by some of the capital’s most impressive architecture. Around 370,000 people go there to work every day, but [...]
JD Wetherspoon boss launches another attack on VAT March 14, 2014 The chief executive of high street pub chain JD Wetherspoon has again condemned the tax advantages supermarkets get over pubs. In a statement as part of the company’s interim financial results, Tim Martin said: The biggest danger to the pub industry is the continuing tax disparity between supermarkets and pubs. Thanks mainly to the work [...]
Cookery titles lead Bloomsbury to a year of sizzling book sales May 20, 2014 PUBLISHING house Bloomsbury said strong demand for its cookery, adult fiction and non-fiction books boosted revenues 11 per cent last year to £109.5m. Titles such as Tom Kerridge’s Proper Pub Food and Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season led to what chief executive Nigel Newton described as a “spectacular year”. Despite the sales boom, profits slipped [...]
Why Bitcoin won’t be the money of the future – but cryptocurrencies might be August 18, 2014 PROPONENTS of Bitcoin like to suggest that it will be the money of the future. Critics point to its price volatility, evidence of a Bitcoin bubble and other problems. With the price of Bitcoin having just fallen below $500 for the first time since May, both sides make valid points. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a [...]
Why I’m on a mission to open up London’s iconic skyscrapers to the public July 24, 2014 This is an exciting time for Londoners; we live in one of the world’s great cities, and one that is changing more rapidly than at any time in its history. This change is evident all around us, as new places and spaces appear, new buildings replace old, and London’s parameters are re-defined. I launched Open [...]
SSP bolsters board ahead of float April 14, 2014 Travel concessions group SSP has recruited three top executives to its board, paving the way for a potential £2bn initial public offering this summer. The private equity-owned group behind Upper Crust and Millie’s Cookies named Ian Dyson, the former chief executive of pub group Punch Taverns, EasyJet chairman John Barton and Denis Hennequin, the former [...]