Shoe chain Brantano bought out of administration by previous owners Alteri February 15, 2016 Alteri Investors has bought back most of shoe giant Brantano's stores less than a month after calling in administrators and three months after acquiring the brand. PwC, the administrators, said 140 of Brantano's stores and concession have been sold back to a company controlled by the Mayfair investment firm, preserving 1,372 jobs, after interest from a number of buyers. [...]
Upmarket hostel owner Safestay says it is on track to hit forecasts as visitor numbers rise February 15, 2016 Safestay, the Aim-listed property developer of upmarket hostels, said its performance for the year was on track after increasing the number of beds in its portfolio by over 1,000 during the past year. The company, which was founded five years ago with the idea of sprucing up the hostel market, added a fourth hostel to its portfolio in September after [...]
Reported fraud in the UK more than doubled from £720m to £1.5bn last year, with financial services and London particularly badly hit February 15, 2016 The value of fraud in the UK more than doubled in 2015, although the total number of incidences fell, a report out today has discovered. The study by professional services firm BDO revealed that the value of reported fraud last year was £1.5bn, up 110 per cent from £720m the year before and the highest it has [...]
Homes owned through companies falls below 4,000, HMRC figures show February 15, 2016 The number of high-end homes held under company names has fallen to just 0.2 per cent of the UK's total house stock, according to new figures by a leading asset manager, in a sign that government efforts to clamp down on owner-occupiers using vehicles to buy property is paying off. London Central Portfolio (LCP) chief executive [...]
EU referendum: Manufacturers warn Brexit would be “lose-lose” for EU exporters as Capital Economics says Brexit could cause “significant damage” for EU economies February 15, 2016 A top economist warned today that Britain leaving the European Union could wreak "significant" damage on EU economies. In a client note published earlier today, Jennifer McKeown, senior European economist at Capital Economics, said that while a so-called Brexit would have only "small" costs or benefits for the UK over the medium term, a British exit [...]
Banking experts hit back at claims from Sir John Vickers that the Bank of England is not forcing lenders to hold enough money in capital buffers February 15, 2016 Banking experts have questioned Sir John Vickers’s claims that the Bank of England is not doing enough to shore up the British banking industry, saying more capital requirements for lenders would hurt the real economy. Vickers, who led the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), told the BBC this morning that the Bank “might want to [...]
Moody’s: How the oil price rout will affect Saudi Arabia’s economy February 15, 2016 Saudi Arabia will be faced with tough choices when it comes to spending cuts if oil prices fail to recover in the medium-term. Oil prices have fallen around 75 per cent from a high of over $100 per barrel in June 2014. This has heaped pressure on the balance sheets of oil producing nations, such [...]
The UAE is offering India free oil in order to store crude there February 15, 2016 With millions of barrels of oil sitting in tanks and oil fields across the world, the UAE is offering India free oil in exchange for storing the commodity there. Local media reports suggest that the United Arab Emirate's Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) has agreed to store crude in Indian's maiden strategic storage, giving away [...]
Implats warns on lower earnings due to lower platinum price February 15, 2016 Impala Platinum, the world's second largest platinum miner, today warned that its basic earnings per share for the half year ended 31 December 2015 is expected to be 15-30 per cent lower than the same period the previous year, coming in at between 29 and 35 cents. Headline earnings per share are set to come [...]
Bank of England not out of ammunition, says Ian McCafferty February 15, 2016 The Bank of England could cut interest rates into negative territory or resume its bond-buying programme if the economy were to slow, one of its officials has said. “I certainly don’t believe we are out of ammunition,” rate-setter Ian McCafferty told the Wall Street Journal today. McCafferty voted to keep interest rates at 0.5 per cent this [...]
