ACCA Comment: We should celebrate big businesses November 19, 2013 Large firms are bad at explaining their role in Britain’s economy BIG BUSINESS bashing is all the rage, whether over tax, rising energy costs, or bonuses. But as some point out, we need these businesses for our economy to make a full recovery, even if large companies need to change their ways and do more [...]
Twitter’s float reminds us why we must privatise the Royal Mail September 12, 2013 COUNT on Twitter, that most modern of communication companies, to steal the thunder of the Royal Mail, an organisation founded by Henry VIII and now aiming to reinvent itself as a privatised, modern parcel delivery firm. For most of yesterday, the Royal Mail was the big story: the coalition confirmed the firm would be sold [...]
The unlikely bedfellows driving a cab revolution November 24, 2013 Annabel Palmer talks taxis with Russell Hall and Ron Zeghibe, two of the founders behind Hailo IN 1639, a licence was granted to the Corporation of Coachmen, allowing its members to compete with the then-dominant licensed sedan chairs. Today, there are over 23,000 licensed taxi drivers in London. They’ve become a British institution – described [...]
What Tesco’s US debacle tells us about the wisdom of markets September 10, 2013 EVER since the nineteenth century, the leaders of businesses quoted on the stock exchange have bemoaned investors’ supposedly fickle nature, inability to understand their firms, general competence, and more recently, their relative youth and inexperience. So when back in 2010, Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco’s then boss, complained that fund managers were too risk averse and [...]
Brussels moves to shut Amazon taxes loophole October 24, 2012 AMAZON may have to change the prices it sells its Kindle ebooks at after Brussels chiefs ordered Luxembourg – where Amazon bases its European operations – to up its rate of VAT on ebooks to bring it into line with the rest of Europe. The European Commission yesterday gave Luxembourg and France one month to [...]
BlackBerry to explore strategic options – including a possible sale August 12, 2013 BlackBerry has said announced that its board has formed a special committee to explore its strategic alternatives to enhance value and increase scale – including the possibility of a sale (release). Rumours that the phone company was to go private have been circulating for month, and shares jumped last week after sources reportedly said the [...]
Innovation Diary: The Valley vs the Roundabout: London is starting to close the gap August 11, 2013 WHEN I met David Richards – the British founder of Silicon Valley success story WANDisco – last year, I asked him whether he thought London’s Silicon Roundabout could compete with its San Francisco equivalent. Richards replied: “It would be ridiculous to contrast the two.” Richards – who recently brought his product development team from the [...]
Tech powerhouse who wants to save our ailing high street November 10, 2013 Annabel Palmer meets Dan Wagner, back in the limelight with latest venture Powa Technologies HE may be one of Britain’s most prominent tech entrepreneurs, but Dan Wagner has had more than his share of career ups and downs and scathing headlines. In the 1980s, he was subject to criticism from the financial community for his [...]
Blow for Amazon as its third quarter losses rise to $274m October 25, 2012 AMAZON, the online retailer, was hit by a $274m (£170m) net loss yesterday as it was dragged into the red by struggling online business LivingSocial. Despite an impressive 27 per cent increase in third quarter sales, the firm’s investment and capital expenditure programme cancelled out $13.8bn of sales to incur a bottom line loss equal [...]
How betting markets could solve the problem of inaccurate Bank forecasts August 28, 2013 IN HIS first major speech since becoming governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney is today likely to defend a policy that has come to be described as the “Carney rule”. Also known as forward guidance, the rule effectively promises that interest rates will stay at present levels until unemployment drops below 7 per [...]