Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered Labour’s first Budget in 14 years, announcing £40bn of tax rises, Central London Alliance comments
PZ Cussons buys St Tropez for £62.5m September 27, 2010 Soap and shampoo maker PZ Cussons has bought tanning-products firm St Tropez from its private-equity owner LDC for £62.5m in cash. The maker of Imperial Leather soaps and Carex handwash said St Tropez was a good fit with its portfolio of premium brands, which includes The Sanctuary and Charles Worthington hair-care products. St Tropez sold [...]
PZ Cussons buys St Tropez for £62.5m September 27, 2010 Soap and shampoo maker PZ Cussons has bought tanning-products firm St Tropez from its private-equity owner LDC for £62.5m in cash. The maker of Imperial Leather soaps and Carex handwash said St Tropez was a good fit with its portfolio of premium brands, which includes The Sanctuary and Charles Worthington hair-care products. St Tropez sold [...]
Rudd: lack of third runway will harm UK September 26, 2010 SIR Nigel Rudd, the chairman of airport operator BAA, at the weekend warned that preventing Heathrow from building a third runway poses a significant threat to the UK’s competitiveness. Rudd said that the decision to pull plans for the third runway, a central promise made by the coalition government after the general election in May, [...]
Sainsbury ponders expansion in China September 26, 2010 J SAINSBURY has sent a team to China to decide whether the supermarket group can begin a war on a new front with its arch-rival Tesco. Senior executives met with officials from China’s Ministry of Commerce when they visited London this week. Darren Shapland was moved from finance director to a business development role at [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 22, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES SIEMENS PROMISES WORKERS JOBS FOR LIFE Siemens’ German workers have struck a deal that will see their jobs secured indefinitely, in an arresting move that highlights how the financial crisis has triggered a fresh consensus between labour and management in corporate Germany. The engineering group said it had sealed an agreement with its [...]
The Co-op boss who is on a mission to rejuvenate an iconic organisation September 19, 2010 IT IS EASY to see why Co-operative Group chief executive Peter Marks is so excited about the new £180m head office that will open on a 20-acre site in the centre of Manchester in 2012. The current 1960s 13-storey building across the road seems to be made almost entirely of linoleum and plywood. I have [...]
SPREAD BET GURU September 19, 2010 MARKET STRATEGIST josh@cityindex.com Q. Dear Josh, do broker recommendations fundamentally move stock prices? A. In the short term, certainly. It’s quite common for a mainstream broker or investment bank like Morgan Stanley or Citigroup to revise their forecasts on certain share prices and see a knee-jerk reaction in the markets. Last week we witnessed a [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING September 16, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES VODAFONE BALKS AT BEING FORCED SELLER Vodafone’s chief executive has warned that he will not be “forced” into selling the UK group’s minority stakes in four mobile phone operators. Vittorio Colao insisted that the sale this month of Vodafone’s 3.2 per cent stake in China Mobile for £4.3bn ($6.7bn) was not done in [...]
BEST OF THE BROKERS September 15, 2010 ARM Execution Noble thinks it’s time for a breather on the technology company, and downgrades the stock to a “sell” with a fair value of 300p. The broker says that ARM remains well placed to outperform the semi-conductor industry, and will continue to expand into new end markets, but the current value of 29 times [...]
PERSONAL FINANCE NEWS September 9, 2010 RETIREMENT ADVICE MOST SOUGHT Almost half of all consumers seeking independent financial advice last month sought assistance with retirement planning, the professional advice website unbiased.co.uk said this week. Retirement planning has remained on an upward trend since May this year. Consumers are also increasingly looking for specialist guidance on investment and savings. Karen Barrett, chief [...]