Cable eyes Post Office privatisation May 20, 2010 BUSINESS secretary Vince Cable is reviving plans to privatise the Royal Mail, after the previous government shelved similar proposals in the face of backbench rebellion. City A.M. understands that today’s coalition agreement will include a pledge to “inject private capital” into Royal Mail, in a bid to modernise the archaic postal service. The Liberal-Conservative government [...]
High street sales jump April 11, 2010 A RISE in high street sales will add to hopes the economic recovery is on track, with a three per cent like-for-like rise expected for March. The figures, to be released later this week by the British Retail Consortium, and KPMG, will be a boon for a sector that has been decimated by the downturn. [...]
RHJ closes on Kleinwort in £225m deal July 1, 2010 ONE of the oldest names in the City, Kleinwort Benson, changed hands for £225m yesterday as buyout house RHJ International acquired the business from Commerzbank. The institution, which traces its roots back to the 18th century, will use a period of private ownership to revitalise its brand by returning to merchant banking. The company will [...]
RHJ closes on Kleinwort in £225m deal July 1, 2010 ONE of the oldest names in the City, Kleinwort Benson, changed hands for £225m yesterday as buyout house RHJ International acquired the business from Commerzbank. The institution, which traces its roots back to the 18th century, will use a period of private ownership to revitalise its brand by returning to merchant banking. The company will [...]
Election spurs British home owners to sell April 12, 2010 SELLERS returned to the property market with a vengeance in March with the net balance of new instructions at its highest level since May 2007, the latest survey from the Royal Institute for Chartered Surveyors (Rics) will show today. A net balance of 21 per cent of surveyors saw a rise in new instructions compared [...]
Q&A: BUYING May 27, 2010 Camilla Dell MANAGING PARTNER AT BLACK BRICK Q.Dear Camilla, Hips were originally introduced to protect buyers, now that they have been abolished what protection do buyers have? A. HOME Information Packs (Hips) were initially put in place to help buyers find out important information about the properties they were buying and to stop sales falling [...]
House prices fall as lending levels pick up April 13, 2010 HOUSE price rises in the UK have started to slow, while mortgage lending continues to rise. According to data published yesterday by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), house prices only rose by 2.9 per cent during the quarter ending February 2010, a fall compared with the previous quarter when prices rose by [...]
WORLD CUP STOCK PICKS ARE FAR FROM A SAFE INVESTMENT PLAY May 26, 2010 YET more World Cup fun and games from the financial sector, as Halifax Share Dealing yesterday launched a “Sports Stocks Index” based on the upcoming tournament. The broker’s method was to match shares to each of the competing World Cup nations by matching their Fifa country abbreviations to a ticker symbol on an international exchange. [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 27, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES MARKET SHARE SLIP FORCES ASDA TO FIGHT BACK Asda has been forced to fight back with a new marketing push as it saw the slowest sales growth of the big four supermarkets for the fourth consecutive month, according to industry data. Kantar Worldpanel, the consumer research group, found that Asda had the lowest [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING May 25, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES WATCHDOG HINTS AT CURBS ON TARGETED WEB ADS Companies such as Google and Yahoo could face tougher scrutiny in the UK after the Office of Fair Trading said it could step in to regulate targeted advertising on the internet. The watchdog said that more needed to be done to ensure that consumer rights [...]