Rose under fire after M&S profits plunge May 19, 2009 SHARES in Marks & Spencer plummeted yesterday after the retailer’s boss Sir Stuart Rose unveiled a 40 per cent collapse in profit and slashed the final dividend by 33.1 per cent. Any hopes of a quick recovery in the sector were quashed after the M&S executive chairman said he was “was not in green-shoots mode [...]
A SIGH OF RELIEF FOR FUND GURU DUFFIELD August 4, 2009 AFTER months of being down on his luck, perhaps the tide is starting to turn for veteran fund management guru John Duffield and his newest business venture, Brompton Asset Management. Duffield, who also previously set up Jupiter and New Star, originally named the firm Hyde Park Asset Management, before hedge fund marketing firm Hyde Park [...]
SLICE OF OLD-BOY STYLE HITS CITY FINE WINING AND DINING CIRCUIT July 8, 2009 NOT so long ago, City types were busy bemoaning the lack of decent restaurants on their patch. But now, just weeks after the Galvin brothers announced they were opening a new pad near Spitalfields market, I hear there’s a new eatery coming to town, courtesy of Simon Parker Bowles, former brother-in-law to Camilla, Duchess of [...]
CITY TRADER OFFERS GAMBLERS A FLUTTER ON A LOTTERY OF HIS LIFE June 10, 2009 REMEMBER the man who, last year, decided to mend his broken heart after a divorce by selling his entire life on eBay, house, car, job and all? Well, one enterprising City boy has decided to go one better – he’s started a competition for entrants to “win a new life”, and stands to make millions [...]
FIRST WOMEN GATHER AT GALA TALENT SHOW June 11, 2009 THERE’S nothing a bunch of hard-working businesswomen like better than listening to one of their own knowing how to send herself up in style. So it should come as no surprise that the star of this year’s First Women Awards, held last night in the luxurious surroundings of the Marriott Grosvenor Square, was Deloitte veteran [...]
One-Day shambles a far cry from Ashes win September 8, 2009 FOR all the meticulous organisation that went into England regaining the Ashes in the recent Tests, it strikes me that we are playing this one-day series on a wing and a prayer. Sadly, we are a shambles right now. For years now I have advocated the need to employ different set-ups for each form of [...]
One-Day shambles a far cry from Ashes win September 8, 2009 FOR all the meticulous organisation that went into England regaining the Ashes in the recent Tests, it strikes me that we are playing this one-day series on a wing and a prayer. Sadly, we are a shambles right now. For years now I have advocated the need to employ different set-ups for each form of [...]
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; [...]
KKR could yet pull off huge Boots coup May 18, 2009 TOGETHER with Guy Hands’ purchase of EMI, the creation and buy-out of Alliance Boots, the pharmacy-led health and beauty group, was one of the symbolic deals of the boom years. The firm was created when Alliance UniChem merged with Boots in 2006, before becoming the first FTSE 100 member to be taken private by a [...]
Uncertainty over dividend payments could see defensive shares back on top May 25, 2009 MARKS & Spencer was hit by shareholder anger last week after it confirmed a widely flagged decision to slash its dividend payout to shareholders by one third. It saw its shares dive to the bottom of the FTSE 100, wiping 8 per cent off the share price in just one day. The price has continued [...]