SRG to raise £25m from IPO June 28, 2010 The owners of British coal miner Scottish Resources Group are seeking to bank more than £200m next month by selling stakes held for 16 years in an initial public (IPO) offer. The company is currently mostly owned by investment vehicles Parkburn and Palmaris Capital, who have held their stakes since 1994 when it was created [...]
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 [...]
Buy into stability with a well-placed Tuscan property May 13, 2010 THERE have been many pretenders to the throne of Italian property gold, but the fact is that Tuscany is still the place everyone wants to be. The downside to any oversubscribed spot is inflated prices, but the upside, in the case of Toscana, is an extremely stable, not to mention lucrative investment – and proximity [...]
Mitie sees boost from acquisitions May 17, 2010 MITIE, the support services firm, said yesterday acquisitions had boosted full-year profits and it expected increased government outsourcing to continue to support growth. Mitie, which cleans Barclays and HSBC’s UK buildings, said the acquisitions of rivals Dalkia and EPS had increased its foothold in the social housing market and also meant it could offer more [...]
How AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes shrugged off the global recession September 5, 2010 IF Tony Fernandes, the chief executive of pioneering low-cost carrier AirAsia, ever suffered from shyness as child, he is certainly cured of it now. The UK-educated Malaysian entrepreneur, who founded the short haul airline in 2001 and its longhaul sister AirAsia X six years later, dominates the meeting room of his West End PR agency [...]
Travis Perkins trading beats expectations May 17, 2010 BUILDING and home improvements retailer Travis Perkins said it was trading ahead of expectations, with signs of growth in its merchanting business offsetting a contracting DIY market. The group, which is seen as a building industry bellwether, said like-for-like sales increased 1.4 per cent in the four months to the end of April, rebounding from [...]
Survival in the Far East June 22, 2010 JAPAN has defied the most ardent optimists for the past 20 years. From a peak of 38,000 at the height of the country’s asset price boom in 1990, the Nikkei 225 index has plotted an almost unbroken downwards course. Gross domestic product (GDP) has trodden water at the nominal level of ¥500tr (£3.7tr) for a [...]
Car production sees 90pc rise in March as confidence rises April 22, 2010 LENDING to British firms fell at a slower pace in February than January but still recorded the second biggest annual percentage drop since records began, figures from the Bank of England (BoE) showed yesterday. There was better news for the housing market, however, with mortgage approvals rising for the first time since November and lenders [...]
Flow of lending to UK firms remains weak, warns BoE April 22, 2010 LENDING to British firms fell at a slower pace in February than January but still recorded the second biggest annual percentage drop since records began, figures from the Bank of England (BoE) showed yesterday. There was better news for the housing market, however, with mortgage approvals rising for the first time since November and lenders [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING June 15, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES SONY COMMITMENT BOOSTS GAMES SECTOR Sony, one of the largest computer games developers in the UK, has committed to remaining in the country in a boost to a sector hit by an exodus to lower-cost countries. The Japanese maker of PlayStation, which has its European game design headquarters in Liverpool, is to receive [...]