Foxtons comes clean on £218m loss after buy-out

By Rowena Mason

Published: 10:31PM GMT 07 Mar 2010

The property company was owned by private equity firm BC Partners, but its
lenders took control of the company in January in a restructuring of its
debt.

In a regulatory filing to Companies House, documents reveal that Foxtons
Holdings Ltd made a £218m pre-tax loss for the year to the end of December
2008.

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Isa take-up soars by 53pc

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Published: 3:23PM GMT 17 Feb 2010




There were 14.2m Isa accounts, including both cash and stocks and shares ones, at the end of March last year, up from 9.3m in March 2000, a year after they were first launched, according to Halifax.The group said at least one person in 37pc of households had an Isa, with people in the South East most likely to have one at 44pc. People paid a total of £37.48bn into the accounts during the 2008/2009 tax year, 32pc more than was invested in them during the year in which they were launched.
But the average amount paid into each account has actually fallen, dropping to £2,636 last year, down from £3,064 in 1999/2000. People collectively had £169.5bn held in Isas at the end of last year, an 11-fold increase in real terms on the £12.3bn that was held in them in March 2000.Cash Isas were more popular than their stocks and shares equivalent, accounting for 58pc of all money saved in 2009, despite the fact that people have the option of saving twice as much into shares ones.The situation is very different from when the product was launched in 1999, when 90pc of money invested during the first year was put into stocks and shares accounts.Suren Thiru, an economist at Halifax, said: “It’s clear that Isas hold an enduring appeal with savers with take-up growing some 53pc over their history.”People aged over 50 can save up to £10,200 each tax year into an Isa, up to £5,100 of which can be in a cash Isa. Those aged under 50 can currently save up to £7,200 each year in one of the accounts, including up to £3,600 in cash, but their limits will rise to be in line with those for the over-50s from the start of the new tax year in April. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

ICAP shares tumble on Obama’s ‘bolt from the blue’ plan for proprietary trading

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By Philip Aldrick, Banking Editor

Published: 7:32PM GMT 05 Feb 2010

ICAP shares crashed
almost 20pc to 294p on Friday after it warned that regulatory uncertainty in
financial services had damaged trading since the start of the year. Mr
Spencer, ICAP’s chief executive, unloaded 10.3m shares in early January for
440p – raising £15m more than if he had sold them on Friday.

Mark Yallop, ICAP’s chief operating officer, said: “We followed all
procedures for approving the transaction to the letter. We have nothing to
hide. The disposal was approved by the chairman [Charles Gregson] in January.”

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Virgin Money primed for assault on UK banking market after Church House deal

By Philip Aldrick, Banking Editor

Published: 6:30AM GMT 09 Jan 2010

Virgin Money, led by chief executive Jayne Anne Gadhia, is paying £12.3m for
the business and investing a further £37.3m in capital to support its
growth. Ms Gadhia shot to prominence in 2007 by bidding for Northern Rock
before it was nationalised.

Bankers expect Church House, and the banking licence it brings, to be the
springboard for another attempt, this time for the £20bn, 76-branch “good
bank” that has been spun out of the state-owned lender.

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Sir Richard Branson’s move for Church allows him to preach his banking credentials

By Alistair Osborne

Published: 7:56PM GMT 08 Jan 2010

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Turns out this is the birth of something more prosaic: that
of Virgin Money as a high street bank. It is, admittedly, all a bit
embryonic for now but the intention is clear enough in Branson’s £12.3m
purchase of the virtually unknown Church House Trust. The tinsy deal brings
the Virgin king the banking licence he craves.

For those unfamiliar with this particular branch of the Church, the business
has much more to do with Mammon than God. It was founded by a solicitor in
1792 and named after the house in Yeovil opposite St John’s Parish Church.
Profits last year would have just about topped the collection plate at
£450,000.

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Dame Clara Furse to join the board at Nomura

By Louise Armitstead

Published: 11:18PM GMT 21 Nov 2009

“Queen Clara”, who became one of the best known executives in the
City during her eight-year tenure at the LSE, has agreed to join the bank as
a non-executive director. The international board, which is separate to the
main board in Tokyo, is chaired by Lord Marshall, the former chairman of
British Airways.

Insiders said Ms Furse’s appointment will be confirmed once it has secured the
approval of the Financial Services Authority.

The hire will be a coup for the Japanese bank which is embarrassed by its
image as institutionally sexist. Nomura has been hit by a series of legal
cases, including this month by two female employees who are suing for £3m
after claiming they suffered sexist and racist behaviour from male
colleagues. One of them, Maureen Murphy, who is half-German and
half-American, claimed one woman trader had her breasts referred to as “honkers”
during a meeting.

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BDO spends £1m to bring Farepak collapse case to court

By Nick Collins

Published: 11:31PM GMT 15 Nov 2009

BDO, as administrator and now liquidator of Farepak, has run up £1.16m in “forensic
fees” since being appointed in October 2007.

The fees relate to investigations being carried out ahead of potential legal
action against unnamed parties “in an attempt to secure further monies
for the benefit of creditors, including customers”.

Although BDO has not named those it hopes to bring actions against, reports
last year claimed potential targets include William Rollason, the former
chief executive and Nick Gilodi-Johnson, former managing director.

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After 125 years, M&S stores to start selling other brands

By
Sean PoulterLast updated at 11:36 AM on 04th November 2009
Big brands on the shelves for first time in M&S historyStore outstrips hopes with £298.3m profit in six monthsPromotions and £10 meal deals help boost takings Sir Stuart Rose calls an end to the downturnMarks & Spencer is breaking with 125 years of tradition and will start selling branded grocery products such as Nescafe and Persil in its stores.Some 400 of the best-known big brands will go on to shelves following the success of two small trials. The switch came as the chain unveiled better than expected profits of £298.3million for the six months to September this morning and chief executive Sir Stuart Rose called an end to the downturn.Promotional offers have been key to driving business, with its ‘Dine
in for two for £10′ proving a massive with with 4.5million meals sold
over the six months.
Break with tradition: M&S is to sell other brand products for the first time
‘I think we’ve been through the worst of the downturn,’ said Sir Stuart.’We’ve seen some stability coming back in. We’ve started over the last two quarters or so to demonstrate some improved performance.’This comes from two places: an improvement outside in terms of consumer confidence, which remains fragile, but also a lot of self-help that we have done in putting better products in, better pricing in, better innovation in, and of course tight control of costs and margins. ‘The all important seven-to-eight weeks to Christmas is still to come and we have had a reasonable start to the third quarter but it was a very volatile period last year, and there will be lot of competitive activity outside.’Marks and Spencer’s shares opened up 5 per cent higher today on the back of the figures. The move to stock other brands comes as M&S tries to be seen as a store to use for a
full weekly shop, rather than the occasional source of a few luxury
meals. It is also seen as the prelude to the launch of an internet grocery shopping operation. The range of branded grocery products includes Coca-Cola, Marmite, Kelloggs and Heinz. Household products will include Fairy, Pantene and Persil. The shift in policy will heighten the rivalry between M&S and its closest competitor Waitrose, which already sells the big brands alongside its own-label foods.

This week the store has run a series of aggressive advertisements demonstrating lower prices than Waitrose on a broad range of foods. The big brand products will start arriving in M&S stores over the next year, starting this month with additional stores in the trial areas of the South-East and North-East. Each M&S store will offer an edited selection of the range chosen according to its size, starting from around 50 products in smaller stores up to the full range of around 400 products in the largest outlets. All of the branded products have been price matched to ensure they are on a par with the major supermarkets. M&S has also produced figures showing it is cheaper where it has a product that is similar to a big brand. For example, Nescafe Original 200g is £4.44 against £3.49 for the same size of M&S Café Granules, while a box of 80 PG Tips teabags is £1.79 compared with £1.30 for the equivalent M&S Red Label bags. 

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Bosses make Hay on pay

Edited by Jonathan Russell

Published: 9:45AM BST 09 Oct 2009

In yesterday’s results the company mourned the difficult times it is going
through. “No indication of recovery,” it said, “specialist recruitment
markets continue to be very challenging.” All that on top of a 37pc fall in
revenue.

Painful stuff – but not for everyone.

In the company’s 2009 annual report, out just a day before the results, Hays
revealed that chief executive Alistair Cox and finance director Paul
Venables saw their pay hit £1.8m and £1.3m respectively. That’s a 20pc
increase for each of them.

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Dairy Crest closes final salary pension scheme

Jamie Dunkley, Pensions Correspondent

Published: 10:43AM BST 29 Sep 2009

The Clover Butter to milk producer will close the scheme next April to reduce
the burden on its balance sheet. The scheme had a deficit of £63.3m as of
March 31 compared to £31.6m a year earlier.

Dairy Crest’s final salary scheme was closed to new entrants in July 2006 and
has 3,370 existing members. They will be encouraged to join the defined
contribution (DC) scheme that is offered to new recruits.

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