Johnston Press is ready to wield the axe after more disappointing results March 11, 2010 Johnston Press saw its pre-tax profits plummet 56 per cent to just £43m last year, dragged further into the doldrums by the ongoing advertising drought. Like-for-like ad revenue fell 26.5 per cent and total group revenues fell 20 per cent to £428m. Britain’s regional newspaper industry has been hammered by a severe downturn in advertising [...]
LVMH gives a boost to luxury goods sector February 4, 2010 LVMH, the owner of luxury retailer Louis Vuitton and champagne house Moët & Chandon, yesterday said like- for-like sales in the fourth quarter of the year grew one per cent after achieving record sales in December. The Paris-based group said profit from recurring operations fell to €3.35bn (£2.9bn), down eight per cent from €3.63bn in [...]
CITY MOVES | WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS April 12, 2010 Shepherd and Wedderburn The law firm has elected James Will, the head of its corporate practice, to the position of chairman after over 20 years as a partner at the firm. Corporate partner Andrew Blain takes over as head of corporate, while Guy Winter has been promoted to partner in the same division. Winter joined [...]
KKR and Warner Music run the rule over Guy Hands’ EMI March 14, 2010 PRIVATE equity house KKR was named as a partner with Warner Music in a break-up bid for troubled record label EMI yesterday. The two are reported to have been in talks for a fortnight over an approach for EMI, which is expected to be put up for sale by its buyout owner Terra Firma in [...]
CITY VIEWS: WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO HOUSE PRICES IN 2010 ? March 4, 2010 ROBERT NUNN | RESOURCES GLOBAL “I think house prices will continue to go down. Demand is simply not there at the moment and inflation has gone up. If the Tories get in they’ll cut expenditure and the public sector. This leaves a huge portion of the population unable to buy and as a result prices [...]
US home sales edge upwards February 2, 2010 Pending sales of previously owned US homes edged up as expected in December, a survey showed yesterday, which should help to calm fears of renewed weakness in the troubled housing sector. But the housing recovery remains slow and painful, with other data showing the percentage of empty privately owned homes rose to 2.7 per cent [...]
Redrow warns on mortgages February 25, 2010 HOUSEBUILDER Redrow slashed its first-half losses following a pick-up in the number of sales and an increase in prices but warned that a lack of mortgages is still causing problems. Completions climbed 21 per cent to 1,266 for the six months to December with the average selling price of homes rising 3.6 per cent to [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING April 19, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES HCL FUELS DEBATE The head of one of India’s biggest IT outsourcing companies has waded into the debate on UK public sector efficiency savings, complaining of an “old boys’ network” in government procurement. Vineet Nayar, chief executive of HCL Technologies, hit out at the “stranglehold of a few companies” in Britain’s £17bn market [...]
Castaway investors land £4.9m February 15, 2010 Shareholders in Castaway Television Productions, the reality studio behind worldwide hits such as “Survivor” and “Celebrity Survivor”, have shared a £4.9m dividend. Investors including Bob Geldof and Lord Alli were given the payout, which was up from the £3m distributed in 2008. Sales rose to £8.8m from £6.1m in the year to March 2009, according [...]
Hitachi launches £1bn retail fund February 22, 2010 Japanese-backed Hitachi Capital has launched a £1bn fund to prop up the UK retail industry. The firm’s consumer finance division is ready to implement a plan that will invest the cash into the furniture, white goods, jewellery and other retail sectors in order to stimulate growth in sales. Consumer finance divisional managing director Gerald Grimes [...]