Bonuses slashed at Sainsbury’s and M&S June 7, 2012 The chief executives of major retailers J Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer have both taken cuts in their bonuses after failing to meet targets and as recession forces them to scale back growth plans. Philip Clarke, head of rival Tesco, last month forewent his annual bonus, paying the price for a weak performance in the [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 30, 2012 FINANCIAL TIMES Transparency on banks’ treasury units urged International banks must improve disclosure of often obscure treasury unit investments following the recent $2bn trading loss at JPMorgan’s chief investment office, rating agencies and bank analysts have urged. Malaysia fund nears £375m Battersea deal A Malaysian pension fund is poised to seal a £375m deal to [...]
KKR enters the race for Rio and BHP diamonds April 15, 2012 US BUYOUT giant KKR has emerged as one of the frontrunners to snap up the diamond businesses put up for sale by mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. The listed private equity house wants to create the world’s third-largest diamond miner to challenge De Beers and Alrosa. It is believed to be competing with [...]
Investors take $1.6bn stake in F1 as IPO looms May 22, 2012 PRIVATE equity house CVC Capital has moved closer to its hotly anticipated flotation of Formula One by selling a $1.6bn (£1.01bn) stake to three major investors. CVC, which owned 63.4 per cent of F1, has sold 21 per cent of the business, it said yesterday. Asset managers BlackRock and Waddell & Reed alongside Norges Bank [...]
RED-HOT GROWTH COOLS FOR HUGO BOSS March 14, 2012 HUGO Boss said sales growth would halve this year, cooled by a likely slowdown in red-hot Chinese demand for designer labels. The German fashion house, controlled by private equity house Permira, also announced plans to convert all its preference shares into ordinary shares, rekindling speculation that the buyout firm could seek an exit soon. In [...]
Moving from commercials to content May 9, 2012 WE’RE about to have the kind of summer that advertisers dream of. The combined effect of the Olympics, the Euro 2012 football championship and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will sharply push up bookings, even as the macro economic environment darkens. ITV yesterday said it expected its own ad revenues to jump by between 12 and [...]
Shock surge in US house sales January 26, 2011 NEW home sales rocketed by 17.5 per cent in December, compared to November, data showed yesterday. The rise meant that 329,000 one family homes were sold in the 12 months to December. Sales were up massively in the west of the US — a 33 per cent increase on the previous month — raising some [...]
SELL May 24, 2012 MANAGING DIRECTOR KAY & CO Q. I am going to sell my property and I understand that most enquiries now stem from the internet. How can I ensure that my property stands out from the rest? A. Statistics show that 75 per cent of all property related searches now stem from the internet. There are [...]
Higher sales prevent house price plummet July 24, 2011 RISING sales are preventing house prices from sinking significantly further, the latest Hometrack survey reveals this morning. A 20 per cent upturn in sales over the last two months has kept prices from dropping at a sharper rate, the group said, reporting only another slight (0.1 per cent) decline in prices for July. “Prices are [...]
FTSE recovers from Euro rout April 24, 2012 BRITAIN’S blue-chip shares rose yesterday, rebounding from a Europe-wide rout the previous day and helped by better-than-expected US housing data which boosted global risk appetite. The FTSE 100 index rose in tandem with US stocks following the release of US new home sales data, which dropped to four-month lows but came in above analysts’ expectations. [...]