Restaurant Group serves up profit rise March 3, 2010 RESTAURANT Group – which owns the Garfunkel’s and Chiquitos chains – saw a slim rise in profit last year. Revenues were up five per cent to £436m while pre-tax profits rose two per cent to a higher-than-expected £50m, the company said yesterday. The company has weathered the recession without the massive discounting seen by some [...]
THE TIPSTER January 31, 2010 FRIDAY’S upbeat house price data from the Nationwide was well received by home owners, but it might only last for the short-term. Whether the upward trend in home values can be sustained for any length of time is clearly open to debate. The prospect of rising interest rates threatens to squash demand as mortgage repayments [...]
Inside the tortured mind of a murderer April 21, 2010 BLUEEYEDBOY BY JOANNE HARRIS Doubleday, £18.99 THE colour of murder is blue, he thinks. Ice-blue, smokescreen blue, frostbite, post-mortem, body-bag blue. It is also his colour in so many ways, running through his circuitry like an electrical charge, screaming blue murder all the way.” So begins this chilling, elegant thriller about a blue-eyed boy that [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 11, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES TOTAL CHIEF STILL KEEN ON UAE DESPITE SETBACKS Total, the French oil company, is looking to invest in the United Arab Emirates’ nuclear industry despite having been part of a consortium that lost the $20.4bn contract to build the country’s reactors. The loss to a Korean consortium, led by Korea Electric Power Corp [...]
CITY BOSS JOINS BEAR GRYLLS ON ARCTIC TRIP April 11, 2010 IT ISN’T every day that a financier gets to ditch his day job for a few weeks and sail off into the sunset for the adventure of a lifetime with a self-confessed adrenaline junkie. Then again, how many City financiers can count Bear Grylls – the skydiving, creepy crawly-munching, elephant piss-drinking star of Channel 4’s [...]
Geronimo boosted by Christmas January 5, 2010 Festive Londoners helped pub operator Geronimo Inns sparkle over Christmas, with like-for-like sales up six per cent in the last four weeks of the year. Despite many publicans suffering badly during the recession, the privately owned firm said it achieved the increase without any discounting or promotions. Geronimo said its 28 pubs in and around [...]
Enterprise to support pubs July 16, 2009 ENTERPRISE Inns, Britain’s second biggest pub company, said yesterday it was raising the level of support it gives to struggling tenants after the number of closures across its estate rose by 50 per cent. Enterprise, which has around 7,500 leased and tenanted pubs, said it had increased the assistance, which is given through rent concessions [...]
Pub food and Pedigree pints boost Marston’s August 4, 2009 BREWER and pubs chain Marston’s yesterday said that it was confident of meeting expectations for the year after a surge in food sales boosted trading. The group, which operates more than 1,700 pubs across England and Wales, reported a 2.3 per cent like-for -like sales growth in the six weeks to 1 August. The upturn [...]
CITY VIEWS: will the government’s push to drive smoking underground work? February 1, 2010 ADRIAN TURNER | PELDON ROSE “I think it’s a good thing, although I’ve never actually had anything against smokers. I think all the government’s measures against smoking are good in principle, but personally I think that banning it from pubs was a bad idea.” JAMES HOLMES | LLOYDS TSB “I’m trying to quit, so anything [...]
Sky launches 3D footie and defies slump January 28, 2010 SATELLITE broadcaster BSkyB will broadcast Manchester United’s clash with Arsenal this weekend in 3D at a handful of pubs. The event, which Sky is billing as a world-first, will drum up interest for its 3D TV service, which launches in April. Nine pubs in London, Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Dublin will take part. Sky announced its [...]