Gadget-maker JML sees profits decline by more than a quarter April 15, 2014 JML, the household products maker set up by Labour donor and economist John Mills, said profits fell by more than a quarter last year despite a 12.4 per cent rise in sales. The group sells quirky products such as Fast Fit Ironing Board Cover and its Shark steaming mops through its four television shopping channels [...]
Is this the laziest place in England? April 29, 2014 The Department for Transport today released figures on how many people in England are walking or cycling, raising an important question – what's the laziest place in England? The answer on this metric is East Lindsey, Lincolnshire, where only 76.7 per cent of people surveyed answered positively. This means, astonishingly, that nearly a [...]
Mapped: Which Phones 4u stores are being shut down? September 23, 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers has revealed the addresses of the 360-plus Phones 4u stores that are being shut down, and the number of staff being made redundant as the business is wound down. At this stage 1,679 people will lose their jobs, with a further 720 people staying on to help with the wind down. Some [...]
Any Other Business – 04/02 February 3, 2014 STAFF at Wonga must be celebrating their move to Camden. New chief executive Niall Wass decided to bring all of the payday giant’s staff under the same roof for the first time and it’s a pretty nice roof too – that of the old Carreras Cigarette Factory, with its stunning art deco facade. Swish! But [...]
Londoners face a £1bn annual mansion tax bill April 9, 2014 LABOUR and Liberal Democrat proposals for a mansion tax would fall almost entirely on homeowners in London, with three boroughs in the capital footing over two thirds of the bill, research out yesterday by Zoopla showed. A mansion tax levy would effectively be a “London tax”, with homeowners in the capital paying just over £1bn [...]
This literally cool map of London shows the hipster migration east April 8, 2014 Is doesn’t take a genius to work out that London’s trendies have moved to east London over the past ten years, gathering into a melting pot of fixies, skinny jeans and iPads in Hackney and the surrounding area – but this map, plus handy graph, does illustrate it beautifully. Savills has gathered data from [...]
The week in brief June 1, 2014 Twitter and Omnicom sign mobile ad deal Omnicom struck a $230m (£137.5m) mobile ad deal with Twitter last week, reportedly securing the media agency fixed ad rates, preferential inventory access, early information on new formats from Twitter, and an eventual integration of the two firm’s programmatic mobile ad exchanges. The agreement follows on from a [...]
Focus on… Kings Cross: Creating the king of regeneration March 13, 2014 IN TWO years’ time, around 30,000 Londoners will be working or studying in King’s Cross every day. At least, this is what is envisioned by Argent, the property developer behind one of the biggest regeneration projects in London. The site encompasses 67 acres of mixed use development, half of which has been completed or committed. [...]
Where to drink May 8, 2014 When daylight saving time kicks in and the sun emerges from behind the clouds, the British mind often wanders to warmer climes, and, more specifically, the things that people drink there. One such area is the “Dirty South” of America. The Q Grill opened in a former petrol station in Camden last week and is [...]
Now that banks are rationing loans, time to scrap Help to Buy May 20, 2014 SO the great crackdown on mortgages has started. With the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee uninterested in hiking interest rates, the only solution to contain house prices, sadly, is to ration credit. In theory, that is the job of the financial policy committee and its new-fangled macroprudential tools; but it has yet to act. [...]