BDO says no Olympic boost for high street September 2, 2012 RETAILERS’ hopes of an Olympic-boost were dashed last month, a leading survey shows today, after Olympic-inspired purchases failed to make up for depressed sales in fashion and homeware. Figures released today by accountancy firm BDO reveal that like-for-like sales at mid-tier retailers dipped by 0.5 per cent in August. Fashion sales were down 1.3 per [...]
Osborne’s Autumn Statement targets higher rate taxpayers December 5, 2012 George Osborne yesterday admitted that the government will miss its own growth and debt reduction targets, forcing him to extend his austerity measures for another year to 2018. Insisting that he would not change his approach, Osborne told the House of Commons that “Britain is on the right track” and “turning back now would be [...]
Apax ready to make a loss in Marken sell off September 16, 2012 PRIVATE equity firm Apax is set to sell medical courier company Marken at a huge loss after receiving a number of first round bids for the troubled business. Apax, which bought the blood and vaccine supply shipping business from Intermediate Capital Group in 2009 for roughly £975m, is selling the firm after finally failing to [...]
FF&P Private Equity backs manager buyout September 23, 2012 FLEMING Family & Partners’ private equity arm yesterday announced it had stumped up £8m to take a majority stake in the management buyout of rental furniture provider David Phillips Furniture. FF&P Private Equity has put up the money to back the deal, which will see current management reinvest in the firm. FF&P PE said the [...]
Recovering taxpayer money on a bailout boosts moral hazard September 10, 2012 THE White House says the AIG shares sale demonstrates its “commitment to recover taxpayer money”. But not, one can’t help noting, to return it to actual taxpayers. And announcing the sale of $18bn of shares at once doesn’t sound like all that much of a commitment to selling at a great price. Still, the American [...]
US house sales recover from low June 29, 2011 Pending sales of existing US homes rebounded from a seven-month low in May but demand for mortgages sank last week as the market struggled under the weight of a glut of unsold properties. The National Association of Realtors home sales index increased 8.2 per cent to 88.8, but rise in contracts was merely a correction [...]
Business networking has been transformed December 19, 2012 NETWORKING has always played an important role in career and business progression, but it has seen a significant transformation in recent years. The most notable change has come in the way professionals network: from a face-to-face business card exchange to making hundreds of connections on, for example, LinkedIn. Executives at global companies no longer need [...]
No reprieve for upbeat US banks October 15, 2012 IT SEEMS to be a good earnings season for US banks, with even Citigroup beating the analysts yesterday despite its losses and JP Morgan and Wells Fargo doing well last Friday. But while we wait to see if Goldman Sachs and State Street, both reporting today, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch and BNY Mellon, [...]
Tattersalls sale attracts wealth of racing fans October 15, 2012 CITY horse racing fans, of which there are no doubt many, may have been following the Tattersalls yearling sale last week with a speculative eye. This was certainly the case for Bernard Kantor of Investec and Martin Hughes of Cheviot Asset Management, who were both spotted at the old auction house. Tatts, by no means [...]
No shortage of literature for banking bookworms this month October 23, 2012 RECENT City A.M. award winner and property giant Westfield welcomed the Prime Minister’s wife to their Shepherd’s Bush store yesterday. Samantha Cameron, ambassador of Save the Children, gave a special reading of The Snail and the Whale at Foyles Bookstore to a group of children from Larmenier & Sacred Heart primary school. But for grown-up [...]