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  • House prices flat in fragile market

    Monday 27 Jul 2009

    House prices remained unchanged for a third month in a row in July as job fears helped prevent a recovering in the property market, according to Hometrack.

  • Darling to quiz banks on business lending

    Monday 27 Jul 2009

    Britain's high street bank chiefs have been summoned to the chancellor's office today to explain their failure to re-start lending to small businesses despite receiving £37bn of taxpayer's money.

  • Ryanair posts 550% jump in profit

    Monday 27 Jul 2009

    Lower fuel costs helped budget airline Ryanair report a better than expected first quarter profit.

  • National Express confirms CVC/Cosmen bid

    Monday 27 Jul 2009

    National Express confirmed that it has received an indicative proposal from a consortium comprising funds advised by equity firm CVC and interests of Spain’s Cosmen family. The consortium's proposal is subject to a “significant number of pre-conditions and assumptions”, including: retention, following a change of control, of the group's East Anglia and c2c rail franchises

  • Raging bull market

    Friday 24 Jul 2009

    UK gross domestic product in the second quarter was 5.6% lower than a year earlier, the biggest annual decline since quarterly records began in 1955. The stock market responded by rising for the tenth day in succession. No wonder bears are shaking their heads and looking mystified; the bulls have them on the run, but could the situation change just as quickly?

  • GDP data dampens recovery hopes

    Friday 24 Jul 2009

    The UK economy shrank far more than expected in the second quarter, suggesting that Britain may take longer to recover from the recession than hoped. Output contracted 0.8% between April and June after a 2.4% decline in the first quarter, according to the Office for National Statistics’ flash estimate.

  • VW powerhouse faces uncertain future

    Friday 24 Jul 2009

    Having been preoccupied with an epic power struggle over who will get control in the new automotive powerhouse, the Porsche and Piech families will now have to focus their attention on getting on with the merger.

  • Vodafone revenues reliant on currency swings

    Friday 24 Jul 2009

    Vodafone saw revenues rise 9.3% in the quarter to June boosted by exchange rate movements and acquisitions but if you strip those out, the like-for-like figures were fairly grim.

  • Ford ahead of forecasts

    Thursday 23 Jul 2009

    Ford posted an underlying loss of $424m in the quarter to June, with chief executive Alan Mulally describing current conditions as “extremely challenging” with demand for new cars very weak.

  • Relenza only short-term cure for Glaxo's ills

    Thursday 23 Jul 2009

    A dose of swine flu is not the only thing worrying GlaxoSmithKline shareholders this summer, having watched the drug giant lose half its value since the start of the decade.

  • Mortgage approvals hit 15-month high

    Thursday 23 Jul 2009

    The number of mortgages approved by high street banks rose for the sixth time in seven months in June, up to their highest since March last year.

  • Porsche chief exec Wiedeking steps down

    Thursday 23 Jul 2009

    Porsche announced that Wendelin Wiedeking is stepping down as chief executive of the sports car maker with immediate effect only hours after the group’s board agreed to seek a capital injection of at least €5bn.

  • Water stocks get a soaking

    Thursday 23 Jul 2009

    This week’s decision by Ofwat to propose cuts in water bills between 2010 and 2015 has seen the publicly quoted shares in the water sector take a hit.

  • Kingfisher cheers DIY trend

    Thursday 23 Jul 2009

    Kingfisher reported a 0.7% rise in like for like sales at B&Q in the UK, thanks to a growing trend for home and garden DIY.

  • National Express gets new approach

    Thursday 23 Jul 2009

    Bus and rail group National Express confirmed that it has received a second bid approach after rival FirstGroup walked away from a possible deal last night. National Express did not name the potential suitor, but the Times is reporting that Stagecoach was named by transport industry sources as the interested party.

  • Glaxo to triple flu treatment production

    Wednesday 22 Jul 2009

    Drug giant Glaxo is to more than triple its production of flu treatment Relenza to cope with the outbreak of the H1N1 virus or swine flu.

  • Ofwat to rule on water firms' five-year plans

    Wednesday 22 Jul 2009

    Just two days before Ofwat, the water regulator, was due to give its preliminary verdict on water firms’ plans for inflation-busting price rises, Severn Trent became the latest to complain of consumers cutting back on water use.

  • BoE says risks to GDP 'diminished'

    Wednesday 22 Jul 2009

    The Bank of England voted unanimously in favour of keeping interest rates at 0.5% in July and the programme of quantitative easing (QE) at £125bn. Minutes from this month’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting revealed the nine-members expect the economy to shrink less in the second quarter than they thought back in May

  • Pub closures hit 52 per week

    Wednesday 22 Jul 2009

    The rate of UK pub closures reached 52 per week in the first half of the year, the steepest rate of decline since records began in 1990 and a third compared to the same period last year.

  • UK banks may need billions in extra capital

    Wednesday 22 Jul 2009

    Tighter regulatory control over their investment bank arms could mean Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays having to raise billions more in extra capital, banking analysts suggested yesterday, while Lloyds faces a mountain of bad debts.

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