Boots might have moved its headquarters from here to Switzerland, but even customers who are irritated by this move still keep shopping at the stores... more
Alliance Boots bosses insist the group is paying a fair amount of tax, shrugging off inquiries into why its official headquarters are in Switzerland... more
Alliance Boots smashes through the £1 billion profit barrier for the first time as its lipsticks, medicines and face cream prove near recession proof... more
Archie Norman was the youngest-ever partner at management consultants McKinsey before becoming one of the three founders of Woolworths and B&Q retailer Kingfisher in the 1980s... more
'The 1000' - the Standard's list of the capital's top movers and shakers - is out tomorrow. Here's a preview of 25 bright sparks who make this year's selection for the first time... more
Poor Stephen Byers wasn’t left with much of a choice when in 2000, as the Government minister in charge, he was responsible for sealing the fate of MG Rover... more
Andy Hornby is sitting in a Starbucks. At 42, he's just been made chief executive of one of our biggest, best-known businesses, Alliance Boots. But he's not wreathed in smiles and high-fiving it over the lattes ... more
When Boots was taken over by Stefano Pessina’s Alliance group, I irritated Richard Baker, the then Boots chief executive, when I said I did not expect him to last six months under the new regime. He disagreed and he was right; he lasted about a year. In the end though, he decided the company was not big enough to have a hands-on executive chairman in Pessina, and still leave a proper job for the chief executive ... more
The defining moment of this supposed public humiliation came early on. It was when the bank chiefs were asked about their remuneration, whether they thought their company's bonus policy had contributed to the subsequent disaster. ... more
After the past 12 months of highs and lows in the capital, Nick Curtis sorts out the London personalities with plenty to smile about from those who have gone into freefall... more
Finally, a significant head has rolled from the top of a major British bank. One of the most shameful aspects of this process has been the refusal of those who run our banks to accept any culpability. Their sneering superiority has seen them cling to their multi-million-pound packages and heavily-funded lifestyles in the face of growing evidence that they were to blame. ... more
Halifax and Bank of Scotland owner HBOS came up with its most gloomy view of the UK housing market, as it formally launched its £4 billion cash call on shareholders... more
HBOS, Britain's fourth-largest bank and owner of the biggest mortgage lender Halifax, has warned that it expects financial market conditions to remain uncertain throughout 2008... more
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