BEST OF THE BROKERS May 4, 2011 WHITBREAD Credit Suisse rates the retail group “outperform” and has cut its target price to £19.92. The broker has cut its earnings per share forecasts for the next two years following cautious outlook comments from the firm, but adds that Whitbread shares have underperformed the UK sector by six per cent since early January and [...]
Scandal will be a Lehman Brothers moment for media July 7, 2011 IN many ways, the disgusting scandal that has so stunningly and abruptly destroyed Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World (NotW) could prove to be a mini-Lehman Brothers moment for the media industry. As the dominos tumble, there will be more, as yet unknown, corporate victims. Seismic, uncontrolled changes are now afoot, at a time when [...]
Why Greece is the new Lehman Bros June 16, 2011 IT is a tale of two economies and two very different responses to catastrophe. Last week, the Icelandic government borrowed $1bn on the bond markets, paying only just over 3 per cent interest. It is an astonishing recovery for a country that just two years ago was written off as a bankrupt, discredited pariah, its [...]
Leading the way to a digital Holy Grail June 12, 2011 WE USED to work in media buying so we know what makes media owners tick,” Henry Rowe tells me. He and his business partner Dominic Finney got the idea for their business, FaR Partners, when they realised that they had the killer combo of media buying know-how and tech savvy. It has been a roaring [...]
Technology clusters at the pinnacle of success May 16, 2011 SILICON Fen is the UK’s answer to California’s tech-rich valley. The Cambridge cluster is proof that, by forming a hub of creativity, UK technology companies can compete on the world stage. Charles Cotton of Cambridge Phenomenon explains that the original catalyst for Silicon Fen came from Tim Eiloart and David Southward, chemical engineering graduates from [...]
Domino’s given boost as online revenues shoot up September 29, 2010 DOMINO’S Pizza said yesterday its online sales have surged by 69 per cent – mainly due to its new iPhone app. The chain said overall same-store sales rose 9.9 per cent in the 13 weeks to last Sunday taking its sales growth for the year to 12.5 per cent. Including new stores, total sales rose [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS April 5, 2011 RESOLUTION Citigroup rates the insurance group “buy” with an increased target price of 367p. The broker believes that M&A and mission creep fears have been over-discounted in the market, with the risks instead lying with changing regulation and agency costs. Citi likes Resolution’s low relative leverage and excess capital, and hangs its investment case around [...]
FEAR OF GREEK HAIRCUT CAPS EURO’S RALLY April 19, 2011 DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT FOR the past several months, the euro-dollar has been like the Terminator. Nothing could slow down its progress as markets ignored all sovereign debt problems in the periphery and focused only on yield differentials. A hawkish European Central Bank (ECB), which raised rates by 25 basis points last month, stood [...]
The European sovereign debt bomb is ticking May 17, 2011 JEAN-CLAUDE Juncker, chairman of the Eurozone’s finance ministers, said yesterday that Greece may have to ask investors to either extend the maturities of its bonds or agree to a soft restructuring. This follows on from the Greek foreign minister Dimitris Droutsas saying that the country was open to soft debt restructuring if needed. But in [...]
Stopping the rot: Eurozone contagion May 24, 2011 GLOBAL REACH PTNRS MARK THOMPSON The resurgence of Eurozone sovereign debt fears has driven the euro to two month lows against the dollar in the last two trading sessions and looks likely to keep the common currency under pressure in the days to come. Investors are right to be anxious about the implications of further [...]