FirstGroup first half profits slide following franchise misstep November 12, 2015 FirstGroup, operator of buses and trains in the UK and the US has said pretax profit dropped by a third in the first half year-on-year, down to £22.4m from £33.3m. Group revenue for the half was down 17 per cent to £2.44bn, in line with its expectations. The group’s share price is trading up by [...]
Just less than half of financial professionals think bosses’ business decisions are based on gut feelings, as many feel undervalued by the organisations they work in November 12, 2015 Are the spreadsheets scattered across your boss's desk just an illusion? A report out today by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and professional services firm KPMG has found that almost 40 per cent financial professionals believe that most business decisions are made primarily on gut feeling rather than cold, hard facts. In the [...]
Liberty Interactive spinning off CommerceHub and Expedia Holdings November 12, 2015 Liberty Interactive is spinning off two new units, CommerceHub and Liberty Expedia Holdings. Travel firm Expedia’s parent company is splitting off its e-commerce software division to CommerceHub. Liberty Expedia Holdings, meanwhile, will include the group’s full 18 per cent stake in Expedia, but also the site bodybuilding.com. Expedia recently posted bookings up by 21 per [...]
Tech City launches programme to help address UK’s scale-up issue November 12, 2015 There's a new initiative out there to help London's fledgling tech businesses boom. Today, Tech City UK, a publicly funded nonprofit focused on nurturing digital businesses, launched Upscale, a programme that will connect 25 promising scale-ups – companies that have grown beyond the start-up phase – with free expertise and advice to grow their business to [...]
Deutsche Bank puts in place new management team for investment bank November 12, 2015 Deutsche Bank announced a new slate of top jobs this morning, naming a string of appointments to its corporate and investment bank (CIB) as part of the bank's strategic overhaul, first announced last month. The bank's new co-chief executive John Cryan said last month that he was dividing Deutsche's investment bank into two parts, with one focused [...]
Challenger bank Aldermore looking as safe as houses in third quarter results, as residential mortgages push up lending, but share price drops November 12, 2015 Aldermore has today reported loan growth of about £1bn over the last nine months, bringing total net loans to customers to £5.8bn, an increase of 20 per cent from the end of December. In its third-quarter results for 2015, the challenger bank, which was set up by former Barclays executive Phillip Monks, said it was on [...]
Number of new homes built in England at highest level in 28 years November 12, 2015 The number of new homes in England has risen by a quarter over the past year, the highest annual increase in 28 years, official figures show. A total of 170,690 residential properties were created in 2014/15, a 25 per cent increase on the previous year when the number of homes increased by 10 per cent, according data [...]
Punch Taverns more than halves yearly losses November 12, 2015 Pub group Punch Taverns, owner of around 3,500 pubs nationwide, has narrowed its yearly losses by over half to £105m, from £240 million a year earlier. Refinancing of debt with a charge of £166m and the falling value of its real estate was mostly to blame. Shares in the pub company have fallen today by [...]
HMRC plans to shut local tax offices and replace them with 13 new regional hubs November 12, 2015 HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has today announced that it is planning to close 137 of its local tax offices, replacing them with 13 new regional tax offices. The regional centres, the first one of which could be launched as early as 2016 with the rest opening between 2017 and 2021, will generally be in [...]
Card Factory’s share price slides after reporting slower sales growth November 12, 2015 Card Factory's share price was trading down after reporting sales growth of 7.9 per cent for the nine months to the end of October, down from the 8.7 per cent growth reported in the same period last year. The greetings card chain was trading 1.11 per cent down at 359.65p in early afternoon trading on the [...]