GSK and Astra profits jump
31 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 26 views]
It was a good quarter from the pharmaceutical giants, with GlaxoSmithKline and Astra Zeneca both announcing a big jump in profits last week. Profits at GSK were up £200mn to £1.25bn. Its asthma drug, Advair, enjoyed a wheezing free period, with sales up 20%, while sales of its diabetes treatment Avandia/Avandamet increased 22 per cent. [...]
BT takes on Google
31 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 70 views]
The digital lawn has become less clear cut. Time was that BSkyB was a TV broadcaster, BT a telecom company and Google a search engine. This month has seen announcements from BSkyB that it’s moving into BT territory, offering broadband internet access, and unbundling BT from the local loop as it builds up a network [...]
It’s twice a record: Shell and Exxon both break all time profit records
31 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 62 views]
Records are made to be broken, but twice in one day – that’s going some. But that’s what Shell and then Exxon Mobil managed last week – leading to inevitable calls for windfall tax on both sides of the Atlantic, but in an imaginative defence, the world’s largest oil company said that before you criticise [...]
Poker faced France tries to stem trade tide
31 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 68 views]
French president, Jacques Chirac, decided the best form of defence is attack last week, as he came out firing on all cylinders, determined to save the EU’s unpopular Common Agriculture Policy, and attempted to turn the tables on the US and UK. In a recent interview with Figaro he said that the US and other [...]
UK plc: the comeback kid
30 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 68 views]
The UK could be making a return to the G8 fast lane next year, with the latest report from BDO Stoy Hayward suggesting that the economy should grow at the annual rate of 3% by the second quarter of next year. It’s the service sector that is leading the UK into this apparent recovery , [...]
UK’s borrowers feel the pinch
27 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 57 views]
The latest figures on mortgage repossessions make grim reading- but while they are bad- they are not that bad- and we are nowhere near the levels seen in the early ’90s. According to the Department of Constitutional Affairs, 29,991 mortgage repossessions were entered in the third quarter of this year. That’s 55% up on the [...]
Next generation TV: the war heats up
27 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 56 views]
Last week BSkyB thought it served an ace. First it announced a £1bn war chest for funding its move into telephony, to be partially spent on local loop unbundling – effectively removing BT’s infrastructure from its telecom offering. Then it announced its purchase of Easynet. But yesterday, BT returned the serve, with a corking half [...]
Profits fall at Boots
27 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 69 views]
Things are just not going right at Boots. It might have taken on ex Asda man, Richard Baker, in an attempt to reverse its fall, but, in the UK especially, things seem to just keep going downwards. Profits from the last six months were down 9.6% to £163mn, while like for like sales were down [...]
Competition authorities want more sauce
27 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 53 views]
The Office Of Fair Trading is worried about competition in sauce. Last summer Heinz announced plans to buy HP foods from Danon. The purchase would mean products such as Heinz tomato sauce, Lea & Perrins, Amoy and Daddies would all be under the one roof. And yesterday, the competition authorities were asked to take a [...]
Chinese economy set to double
26 Oct 2005 [0 Comments | 63 views]
By 2010, the Chinese economy is likely to be twice its size at the turn of the millennium. The Chinese government says that it needs to grow by an average of just 5.6% per year for the rest of this decade for this to happen and yet expects growth of at least 7.5%. In the [...]
