General Blog About Everything

Inflation in the European single currency area jumped to 3.6 per cent during
May, up from 3.3 per cent in April. The figure matches the 16-year high seen
in March and was slightly above market expectations.

The private equity giant Carlyle Group yesterday revealed it is working on a
bid for Filtronic, sending the shares in the UK electronics group soaring.
One analyst predicted that the potential deal could be worth about £66m

BHP Billiton has submitted its first round of documents to the European
Commission in an effort to convince the antitrust watchdog that its £75bn
hostile bid for Rio Tinto will not hurt competition.

John Lewis has posted falling sales for the third week running. The department
store said that sales fell by 2.8 per cent to £44.3m for the week to 24 May.

Tesco is to reward its UK employees with nearly £100m worth of free shares.
The world’s third largest retailer is to award £92m worth of shares – a
record amount - to 193,000 of its employees who have worked at Tesco for
more than one year.

Woolworths has responded to speculation that it is using investment bank UBS
to sell its 40 per cent stake in the DVD publisher 2entertain. In a Stock
Exchange statement, Woolworths said: “The company can confirm that it is
considering its options with regard to this stake which may or may not lead
to a transaction.”

The row between Aegis and Group Bollore, a major stakeholder, should have been
laid to rest again yesterday when 91 per cent of non-Bollore shareholders
rejected, for the fifth time in two years, the appointment of two directors
put forward by the French investment group.