It's said of Serco that it's the biggest company you've never heard of. For reasons that escape me, the outsourcer takes great exception to this description, thinking it's somehow demeaning, that they've got their own brand uniqueness and so on ... more
Crisis-torn building group Rok sank into the red today and cut its dividend as it counted the cost of embarrassing financial problems at its maintenance arm... more
City comment: One of the stock phrases of the Labour years has been the "enterprise society". But if it had ever actually existed we’d have no need to be told of its importance now... more
Douglas McWilliams, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research, boasts that unlike some financial think tanks, the CEBR's forecasts for last year weren't too far awry... more
MG Rover auditor Deloitte has escaped censure by the inquiry investigators though questions will continue to be raised over the amount of fees the firm charged... more
There’s an intriguing rumour in European circles. It’s that Downing Street has been considering whether Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs supremo, could be the UK’s next European Commissioner
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One of Britain’s biggest sandwich suppliers has collapsed into administration, in another indication of the crisis facing the food manufacturing industry... more
Hundreds of London jobs at collapsed womenswear chain Principles were under threat as rival firm Debenhams was poised to buy its stock - but not its stores... more
Scandal: Nicola Horlick's Bramdean, Arkie Busson's EIM and Man Group have been named as potential targets of legal action in the Bernie Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scandal... more
Pay: Partners at BDO Stoy Hayward have had to take a pay cut as the firm attempts to spend its way into the big time of the accountancy profession... more
Analyst Alastair Stewart says he can't recommend a purchase of housebuilders. Sale prices have almost halved, development land is worthless and those few people who want to buy can't raise the money... more
The High Street was in crisis as the collapse in consumer confidence, the drying-up of bank lending and the looming end-of-the-month quarterly rent payments sent three groups crashing into administration... more
No wonder bankers take outrageous risks. If they come off, they can go and set up their own charitable foundation, and if they fail, everyone else pays the bill... more
Iconic trucking firm Eddie Stobart has rescued up to 1300 jobs as it bought the chilled and ambient goods division of Innovate Logistics from administrators BDO Stoy Hayward... more
Afternoon:
8°c
