Toyota director noticed deterioration ‘two to three years ago’

By Graham Ruddick, City Reporter (Automotive) in Geneva


Published: 5:21PM GMT 02 Mar 2010

Tadashi Arashima, who is on Toyota’s board, says he demanded an improvement in
manufacturing for the launch of five new vehicles in 2009, but this did not
prevent a mass recall of cars produced over the last five years by the
Japanese company.

Toyota has recalled 8.5m cars globally, of which 1.7m are in Europe and around
180,000 in the UK.

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FTSE 100 slips back despite Wolseley spike

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By Rachel Cooper


Published: 12:40PM GMT 23 Feb 2010







Wolseley



Liberty International



AstraZeneca



Man Group



ICAP

The company spiked more than 10pc to £16.21 after it said full-year profit
before exceptional items were set to beat forecasts after cutting costs. The
positive profit warning prompted analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch
to raise their estimates and repeat their “buy” rating.

AstraZeneca ticked
up 27p to £28.37 after increasing its earnings-per-share target for 2010.
The announcement came as Britain’s second-largest drug maker agreed to pay
£505m to settle a tax dispute.

But strong showings from Wolseley, AstraZeneca and Liberty
International, which put on 9 to 482.1p after Credit Suisse raised
its target price, were not enough to keep the large caps in positive
territory.

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Stephen Thomas poised to quit as Luminar chief

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The music is about to stop for the chief executive of Britain’s biggest
nightclub operator. Stephen Thomas is today expected to announce that he is
stepping down from the board of Luminar, the company that he founded 22
years ago, and handing control to an outsider.

The Times understands that Mr Thomas, 57, will be replaced by Simon
Douglas, the former chief executive of Zavvi, the music retailer that went
bust in December 2008 less than 18 months after he created it through a
buyout of Virgin Megastores.

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Demand for HD TV pushes Sky close to 10m customers

By Rupert Neate

Published: 5:30AM GMT 29 Jan 2010

Jeremy Darroch, chief executive, said new HD customers more than doubled
compared to last year to 482,000 to take its HD subscriber base to 1.3m.

Lorna Tilbian, analyst at Numis, said the increase in new HD subscribers was “outstanding”
and outstripped forecasts of about 310,000. Overall, Sky added 172,000 new
customers to take its subscriber base to 9.7m

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Embarrassment for Brown as major report reveals inequality has INCREASED under Labour

By
Jason Groves
Last updated at 3:36 AM on 22nd January 2010

The gap between rich and poor has widened under Labour, a major new Government report will say next week.The 450-page study by the National Equality Panel is expected to report that the billions of pounds poured into extra benefits, tax credits and anti-poverty drives over the last 12 years have failed to reverse the rise in inequality.The findings are a major embarrassment for Gordon Brown who has adopted a controversial ‘class war’ election strategy designed to position Labour as the party of equality. 
Gordon Brown meets pupils at Marriotts School in Stevenage in the same week that a major report will reveal inequality has risen under Labour
Privately, ministers already conceded that Labour will miss its self-imposed targets for reducing both child poverty and fuel poverty.Speaking ahead of the report’s launch today Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman acknowledged that the study would set out some ‘tough home truths’. She said many in the party would find it ‘uncomfortable reading’.

But Miss Harman, who was mocked in the Commons today for her own privileged background, claimed the report’s findings made the case for even more state intervention to impose equality. She said it would show that the pace at which the gap between rich and poor is increasing had slowed down markedly, with more action needed to throw it into reverse.
Class war: Harriet Harman was mocked in the Commons for her own privileged background
She said the report would ‘reframe the debate on public policy intervention, the action that must be taken to address inequality and raise aspiration so that everyone gets a fair crack of the whip’.She suggested a Tory government would return Britain to a society that was ‘hierarchical and hide bound, where everyone knows their place, where you get on on the basis of your connections or because your face fits’.Conservative equalities spokesman Theresa May said the report would undermine Labour’s claim to have helped the disadvantaged.Mrs May said: ‘At last Harriet Harman has recognised that inequality has got worse under Labour, but all she can do is reach for the old-fashioned response of class war.‘Over the last 12 years social mobility has stalled, so it is even harder to escape poverty. Labour’s failure has been a result of their one-dimensional approach.‘Unlike Labour, we will deal with the causes of poverty and inequality, including educational failure, family breakdown and worklessness.’Miss Harman was mocked in the Commons yesterday for her own privileged background, which includes education at the exclusive public school St Paul’s. Shadow Commons leader Sir GeorgeYoung asked whether the Labour Party’s election manifesto had been ‘dreamt up on the hockey fields of St Paul’s’.Miss Harman hit back with an attack on the Tories’ plans for a marriage tax break which Labour claims will discriminate against single and unmarried parents. In a reference to John Major’s disastrous ‘Back to Basics’ campaign on morality in the 1990s she described David Cameron’s marriage proposals as ‘Back to Basics in an open-knecked shirt’.The new report, which has taken more than a year to compile, will suggest that Britain is still riven with widespread inequality. Researchers found that children eligible for free school meals did only half as well at GCSE as those who were not. Only four per cent of those on free school meals went on to university, compared to one-third of the wider population.Researchers also found that average life expectancy in the most affluent areas was 13 years longer than in the poorest.Miss Harman said the report made it clear that more intervention was needed in the pre-school years, along with more help for youngsters leaving school and women returning to the workplace.

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New York Times to introduce ‘pay walls’ soon

By Rupert Neate

Published: 8:14PM GMT 17 Jan 2010

The newspaper is expected to announce the introduction of a so-called “pay
wall” before the much-rumoured launch of Apple’s new tablet computer,
which is thought to be specially designed for easy newspaper reading, on
January 27.

Sources close to Arthur Sulzberger Jr, chairman of The New York Times,
said the paper would make a decision on charging with the next few days.

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Commercial property values in record rise

Published: 3:26PM GMT 15 Jan 2010

The final month of last year delivered the largest monthly capital growth in
IPD’s 23-year history, at 3pc, according to December’s
IPD UK Monthly Index.

The figure beats the 2.9pc delivered exactly 16 years earlier in December
1993, at the end of the last major property recession.

The fifth-consecutive monthly gain, which amounted to a compounded growth of
8.8pc, was sufficient to lift returns on UK commercial property into
positive territory for the calendar year. In the first IPD indication of the
year, UK commercial property annual total returns for 2009 were 2.2pc, while
capital growth was -5.6pc.

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American Idol creator starts new global group

Simon Fuller, the former Spice Girls manager and creator of America’s most popular television show, plans to launch a new global entertainment company.
Mr Fuller, one of the most powerful figures in entertainment, who has an estimated fortune of £300 million, will run the new venture while continuing to produce American Idol for his existing company, 19 Entertainment.
Under an agreement with CKX, the US-listed company that bought 19 Entertainment in 2005, Mr Fuller will also share in the profits generated by his top-rated shows, in a move likely substantially to boost his earnings.
19 Entertainment provided more than three quarters of CKX’s revenue in the three months to September 30, earning $71.3 million (£43.6 million) in revenue and $11.2 million in profit. However, the figures were down on the previous year as American Idol’s ratings fell and the global recession dampened sponsorship deals.

“This is the beginning of another important chapter in my life,” Mr Fuller said. “As an entrepreneur, I feel I am about to enter my prime years and starting a new entertainment company fills me with great excitement.”
Mr Fuller, 49, is best known in Britain as the former manager of the Spice Girls and the man behind the “Girl Power” phenomenon. He went on to achieve global fame when his Pop Idol reality show was picked up by Fox, the American television network owned by News Corporation, the parent company of The Times.
Since its 2002 launch, American Idol has generated $3.6 billion in advertising sales, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Album sales from Idol winners, such as Kelly Clarkson, have garnered more than $600 million. Branding deals with Coca-Cola, Ford, Apple and AT&T are priced at $26 million each.
Doubts over the show’s future emerged on Monday when Simon Cowell announced that he was leaving to launch The X Factor in America next year. Mr Cowell, famous as the show’s acerbic judge, has said that he wanted to start his own entertainment company, which could compete directly with Mr Fuller’s new venture.
Mr Fuller is likely to use his new company to develop new shows and films. Last November he announced he would produce Bel Ami, a film starring Nicole Kidman and the British actor Robert Pattinson. He is also expected to focus on online television formats. Last month Mr Fuller unveiled a global internet reality show, If I Can Dream, which bypassed TV networks in favour of Hulu, the American streaming video website. “The next frontier is the video world of authentic real-time interaction,” he said at the time. “If I Can Dream experiments with technology to provide for the first time a complete open-door opportunity that allows the viewer to experience reality in a way never before attempted.”
In addition to controlling the Idol format in 108 countries, Mr Fuller has forged partnerships with the sportsmen David Beckham and Andy Murray and owns a controlling stake in Storm, the model agency.
Robert Sillerman, the chairman and chief executive of CKX, said: “This new arrangement guarantees that Simon and CKX will be working together for many, many years to come. I’m also delighted that going forward Simon will be free to focus his creative energy on developing new ideas and projects and that CKX has the opportunity to invest in his new business.”
Mr Fuller this week told The New York Times: “I want to build a new company and do great things. I don’t want to run someone else’s company.”
In November, CKX said that its third-quarter revenue had declined because of lower sponsorship revenue on the American Idol music tour, as well as reduced sales of music. Shares in CKX were down 4 per cent at $5.31 in afternoon trading in New York.

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FSA let failing bank move on High Street

By Rowena Mason


Published: 9:10PM GMT 02 Jan 2010

The revelation comes as Icelandic president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson balked at
signing legislation, already passed by the Icelandic government, approving
reimbursement of £2.3bn to the UK government for compensating 300,000
customers of the Icesave arm of Reykjavik-based Landsbanki.

The Serious Fraud Office is now formally investigating Kaupthing under the
Fraud Act to see whether the launch of its high-interest Edge retail
accounts misled British savers. UK customers deposited £2.5bn in the
internet accounts between April 2008 and the bank‘s collapse 15 months ago.

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Apple’s shares blossom as it prepares to enjoy the fruits of its latest product

By Edmund Conway


Published: 10:14PM GMT 26 Dec 2009

According to recent rumours, the technology company is set to launch a
touch-sensitive mini-laptop, thought to be called the iSlate, possibly as
soon as next month.

Hopes that the launch could do for the nascent ebook and netbook market what
the iPhone did for the mobile phone world pushed shares in the company to a
record high of $209.06 on December 24, up 3.4pc on the day alone. The shares
have more than doubled in the past year.

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