Buyout barons dig deep to raise cash for charity May 13, 2015 THE GREAT and good from the M&A world were at The Savoy earlier this week to raise money at Norwood’s inaugural private equity dinner. Entrepreneur Luke Johnson, chairman of Risk Capital Partners, was special guest speaker at the event, which helped raise £135,000 for the charity. Top notch auction and raffle prizes, including two tickets [...]
Unilever share price drops on weak emerging markets and food sales growth July 24, 2014 Challenging markets in the first half of the year have seen Unilever sales growth come in soft, despite launching a number of recent product launches. The addition of the Ben & Jerry's Core ice cream range, and innovations in compressed deoderants and oral hygiene ranges haven't been enough to generate the sales growth analysts were [...]
Philip Clarke just left Tesco – again March 25, 2015 Eh up. Anyone got a sense of deja vu? Tesco has announced chief executive Philip Clarke had decided to step down, retiring after 40 years in the job. The revelation left supermarket-watchers confused – surely Clarke has already departed, to be replaced by former Unilever man "call me Dave" Lewis? Clarke left the supermarket under a [...]
Lord Browne: Saving the corporation – it’s time to reconnect September 17, 2015 Criticism of big business has long been a favourite pastime of the left. From Jeremy Corbyn to UK Uncut, such campaigners dominate discourse on the disconnect between companies and society, and the solutions proposed to deal with this issue consequently often have a punitive edge, from jailing bankers to renationalising industry. Enter one of [...]
Investors toast new pub boss sending Punch shares higher March 3, 2015 PUB OPERATOR Punch Taverns announced the appointment of its new chief executive yesterday, giving Duncan Garrood the top job. Investors seemingly approved the selection, with shares closing up 5.73 per cent to 92.25p. The news of the appointment comes as the indebted company has undergone two years of restructuring, which saw share prices fall 73 [...]
Dave Lewis: Tesco share prices jumps as investors bet on new CEO’s strong Unilever record July 21, 2014 Investors have been reassured by the appointment of Dave Lewis as Tesco's new top dog. Despite a profit warning, Tesco's shares sprang up by as much as three per cent as markets opened. Part of that can be explained by the coming departure of CEO Philip Clarke. While he will continue to serve in his [...]
Silicon Roundabout costs are on the rise: East end property tech bubble pricing out small businesses March 4, 2015 The property tech bubble in London’s east end is pricing small businesses out of the market. Shoreditch, Clerkenwell, Aldgate and Whitechapel: over the last decade these places have become the breeding ground for media and tech start-ups, as well as larger blue-chip companies looking to grow their digital operations. However, East London’s success at [...]
Tesco boss Dave Lewis: Drastic he may be but let’s not forget dapper January 8, 2015 Drastic Dave Lewis had his day in the spotlight yesterday, reeling off a list of admittedly quite drastic measures in a bid to save Tesco. But the one question The Capitalist wanted to ask was, how does Tesco boss Drastic Dave Lewis feel about constantly being called drastic? Maybe one day he’d like to be [...]
Last year Switzerland filed more patent applications than the UK February 26, 2015 More indication of the UK's woeful attitude to intellectual property: data by the European Patents Office has shown that in 2014, more companies in Switzerland (population: eight million) filed for patents than ones in the UK (population: 64.1m). In fact, Germany, France and the Netherlands all filed more applications. Although to be fair, even Germany's [...]
New Carlsberg CEO seeks cure for hangover February 18, 2015 DANISH brewing giant Carlsberg yesterday appointed a new chief executive, but warned that ongoing geopolitical problems in Russia and Ukraine would hit revenues again this year. Cees ‘t Hart, the Dutch CEO of dairy firm FrieslandCampina, will take the reins at Carlsberg in June. He will replace incumbent Jorgen Buhl Rasmussen, who turns 60 this [...]