Successful entrepreneurs’ advice on how to ride out the three-year glitch September 25, 2011 STARTING a business is not easy. It’s a monumental decision like getting married, buying a house or having children. So much energy goes into getting it off the ground in the first year that it seems odd to focus on the third. But the third year really does matter. It’s a decisive year when most [...]
Successful entrepreneurs’ advice on how to ride out the three-year glitch September 25, 2011 STARTING a business is not easy. It’s a monumental decision like getting married, buying a house or having children. So much energy goes into getting it off the ground in the first year that it seems odd to focus on the third. But the third year really does matter. It’s a decisive year when most [...]
PROPERTY NEWS July 28, 2011 FAIRY TALE CASTLE FOR SALE Castello di Scerpena, a five-bedroom mediaeval castle in Tuscany, is now on the market for €16.5m. There are two villas, a guardian cottage, a deer park and 190 hectares of land with 7,000 olive trees attached to the property’s sale. Contact Savills International on 0207 016 3754 or go to [...]
Topps Tiles in sluggish trading July 13, 2011 Topps Tiles has admitted it faces another quarter of “subdued” trading as the sluggish house market and low consumer confidence continues to hit demand. The floor coverings firm, which has 313 UK stores, said like-for-like sales declined by 1.9 per cent in the 13 weeks to 2 July, compared with a 1.2 per cent fall [...]
Shops, sun and spice: Marrakech is the perfect winter weekend getaway December 5, 2011 HAVING spent a bit of time in Morocco before, I was bracing myself. Six years ago, on a lone voyage on a rusty old ship from Algeciras in Spain to Tangier, I was accosted by three tipsy artifact sellers on board, before getting my camera pinched on arrival at the dusty old port. Further into [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING August 29, 2011 FINANCIAL TIMES WATCHDOG HITS OUT AT BANKS OVER GREEK DEBT Some European financial institutions should have taken bigger losses on their Greek government bond holdings in recent results announcements, according to the body that sets their accounting rules. the International Accounting Standards Board criticised the inconsistent way in which banks and insurers have been writing [...]
Barratt sees return to full year profit July 14, 2011 BARRATT Developments, one of the UK’s largest house builders, said it would return to full-year profit despite market conditions remaining tough. The firm predicted a full-year pre-tax profit of £40m before exceptional items, after a loss of £33m in 2010, meeting market expectations. In its trading statement ahead of its annual results due September, the [...]
Asset based finance sector outperforms wider economy September 15, 2011 CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ABFA WE are all too aware that the UK economy has struggled to recover and grow following the recession, with GDP growth dropping to just 0.2 per cent and with rising inflation and taxes, as well as low productivity, this trend looks set to continue – at least for the near future. The [...]
FTSE continues downward spiral August 5, 2011 Markets continued the downward spiral which saw £35bn wiped off London’s blue-chips yesterday as the debt crisis and fears that the world economic recovery is not gaining traction took their toll. There were few signs of life in markets across Europe this morning with the FTSE 100 slumping 2.8 per cent on opening. Germany’s Dax [...]
Selling price and sales dip at Persimmon July 5, 2011 BRITISH housebuilder Persimmon yesterday said its sales had slipped in the first six months of the year but expressed optimism about the prospects for the housing market. The company said it sold 4,439 homes in the first half of 2011 compared to 4,659 a year earlier, a drop of five per cent. Revenues also dipped [...]