No number of snoods or gloves were enough to entice the amateur footballers who use Goals Soccer Centres out onto the pitch during the last bout of snow... more
Market Round-up: British Airways flies high after the strike by cabin crew was blocked and fears of renewed disruption from the volcanic ash cloud receded... more
Market Round-up: Shares in the owner of London’s Tilbury docks Forth Ports surge after the ports-to-property group says it has spurned the advances of its suitor again... more
Market Round-up: J Sainsbury is one of the fallers in a sinking London market after an analyst advises pocketing profits in the supermarket chain and warns that its outlook for growth is “poor”
... more
Market Round-up: Rumour that household goods giant Reckitt Benckiser has taken a shine to SSL sent the maker of Durex condoms and Scholl footcare's shares up 40p to 881½p... more
Market Round-up: FTSE 250-listed Babcock International agrees a takeover of rival VT Group but the City’s rumourmongers believe it could receive a bid itself... more
Stephen Hester has been making the rounds of the big City institutions and the word is that the Royal Bank of Scotland boss is far more optimistic in private than he has been in public... more
The housebuilding recovery is stalling, strangled by a lack of first-time buyer affordability, according to one leading industry analyst who is telling his clients to get out of the sector fast... more
Have the Lib Dems thought through their plan to tax houses over £1 million? They “might find the definition of a house less than clear-cut”... ... more
Most acquisitions fail - roughly three quarters of them, according to research, do not add value to the acquiring firm nor benefit to its shareholders... more
Most acquisitions fail — roughly three quarters of them, according to research, do not add value to the acquiring firm nor benefit to its shareholders. Yet there are a few companies that make a mockery of these odds and become successful serial acquirers ... more
Merchant ships, which have been riding at anchor off our shores for months, are now building-up a full head of steam as they look to benefit from increased Chinese demand for raw materials ... more
The owner of City stockbroker KBC Peel Hunt, Belgian bank KBC, recorded a €3.6 billion (£3.2 billion) first-quarter loss, forcing the Belgian government to intervene for a third time in eight months ... more
CBI boss Richard Lambert said a few weeks ago that one reason companies seemed quite optimistic in surveys might be that smaller businesses tend to finance themselves from retained profits rather than bank loans, and have therefore been insulated so far from the general cutback on credit.... more
Exclusive: After high-profile allegations this season, Charlton's manager is pleased the issue is now being addressed but says the authorities still have plenty of work to do
Morning:
8°c
