Archive for November, 2011
Thomas Cook shares take off on £200 million rescue deal
Shares in travel firm Thomas Cook were 23% higher in afternoon trading on news of £200 million of new financing for the firm.At the weekend the firm reached agreement with its lenders to provide it with new access to funding. Shares in the company initially fell 75% last week after it said it was in [...]
Airbus announces 200 engineering jobs at Filton, Bristol
Aircraft manufacturer Airbus has announced 200 new jobs at its base in Filton, near Bristol.The company says the new engineering jobs are due to demand for its A350 passenger plane and government investment in the plant. The lightweight composite aircraft was due to come into service in 2013 but will now enter service in the [...]
Fuller Smith & Turner sales buck gloomy trend
The brewer and pub operator Fuller, Smith & Turner has reported higher sales and exports despite the gloomy retail environment.Its profits before tax for the six months to 1 October were £16 million, compared with last year’s £16.8 million. But the company, whose most famous beer is London Pride, reported a 21% rise in exports, [...]
Mobile phone firms offer better service Ofcom watchdog finds
Consumers are more satisfied with their mobile phone provider than they are with landline or broadband suppliers, research has indicated.Communications regulator Ofcom has conducted the latest of its regular samples of customer satisfaction. Seven in 10 customers were happy with the service from their mobile provider – often after calling about their package or service. [...]
Nestle creates 300 new jobs at coffee plant
Nestle is to invest £110 million in its Nescafe Dolce Gusto coffee manufacturing facility.The extension to the plant, in Hatton, south Derbyshire, will treble production and create 300 new jobs. Twelve new high speed production lines will be introduced to make coffee pods, for sale in the UK and 38 other countries. The number of [...]
Toyota announces 1,500 new jobs for Burnaston factory
Up to 1,500 jobs are to be created with production of a new Toyota car at the firm’s Derbyshire factory.Toyota said it would be investing more than £100 million at Burnaston to make it the sole European centre for making its next hatchback. The first 500 workers are to be recruited in the middle of [...]
Small business advice by the Genghis Khan guide
As the economic gales continue to blow, veteran small business survivors argue getting clever about sales can help firms get through tough times.Speculation about what commentators call “meltdown” merely ramps up anxiety levels, as do most attempts to apply graphic metaphors to economic, political or social upheavals. So instead of probing the economic gloom, businesses [...]
Royal Mail reports profits increase
Royal Mail has reported rising profits, while stressing that its core business of delivering letters is loss making.Pre tax profits for the six months to 25 September came in at £187 million, up from £50 million in the same period last year. Royal Mail made an exceptional gain of £190 million from property sales, much [...]
Engineering prize to be worth £1 million
A £1 million engineering prize – named after the Queen – is to be awarded for exceptional advances in engineering.The prize, funded by an endowment from a number of engineering companies, will be awarded biannually to an individual or team of up to three people. It is designed to raise the profile of engineering and [...]
Intel produces one teraflop computer chip
Intel has developed an accelerator chip capable of running at speeds of one teraflops, equal to one trillion calculations per second.The firm showed off the chip, dubbed Knights Corner, on a test machine at a supercomputing conference in Seattle. Computer power on this scale is used to solve a range of problems in fields such [...]