By Ben Laurance and Ian Fraser The Sunday Times December 30th, 2007 A surge in post-Christmas shopping looks set to banish fears that retailers have suffered poor sales in December. And analysts predict most of Britain’s large quoted retail groups will show underlying sales increases when they deliver trading statements over the next few weeks. [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times December 30th, 2007 A Glasgow-based start-up has won a $2m (£1m) order from the US Army’s national ground intelligence centre, based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Crisp Documents has sold a substantial number of licences for its patented vPDF technology to the Virginia-based division of the US military. The ground intelligence [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times December 30th, 2007 BAE Systems claims its two Clyde shipyards have had a record year, with turnover up to £550m and undisclosed profits on the strength of naval orders. The workforce at the Scotstoun and Govan shipyards has doubled since 2002, and Vic Emery, managing director of Surface Fleet [...]
By Ian Fraser Published: The Sunday Times Date: December 30th, 2007 The jury is still out on the long-term merits of Royal Bank of Scotland €71 billion (£52 billion) acquisition of ABN Amro. Yet Sir Fred Goodwin still deserves to be named Scotland’s corporate hero of 2007, not least because of the flawless way in [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald December 30th, 2007 Businessperson of the Year: Sir Fred Goodwin THE €71 billion (£49bn) takeover of Dutch bank ABN Amro was a coup that has left little room for doubt. Sir Fred Goodwin, the 49-year-old chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been confirmed as the uber-hero of [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Herald Magazine December 30th, 2007 SIR FRED Goodwin has just lived through one of the most challenging years of his professional life. Not only has he pulled off the most complex bank takeover in history. He did so against a backdrop of financial crisis, during which banks including the Royal Bank [...]
By Ian Fraser Sunday Times December 23rd, 2007 WHEN Sir Tom Farmer sold Kwik-Fit for £1 billion in 1999, the deal received wall-to-wall coverage in the Scottish press. Farmer built an iconic tyres and exhausts chain from scratch before selling out to Ford Motor Company and today is as charismatic and media-friendly as ever. However [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times December 23rd, 2007 A PROPOSED redevelopment of the Rosyth waterfront that would create 6,000 jobs and bring an estimated investment of £500m into one of Fife’s most deprived areas is in jeopardy because local politicians and planners have other development ideas. Fife council, Scottish Enterprise Fife and Forth Ports [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times December 23rd, 2007 A GROUP of prominent Edinburgh financiers have lost more than £80m because their favoured investment vehicle made a big bet on sectors that have been worst affected by the credit crunch, writes Ian Fraser. The Independent Investment Trust is managed by the well-known stock picker Max [...]
By Ian Fraser The Sunday Times December 23rd, 2007 INDIAN drinks magnate Vijay Mallya has unveiled ambitious plans to erode the stranglehold market leaders Diageo and Pernod Ricard have of India’s fast growing Scotch whisky market. Mallya paid £600m for Glasgow-based Whyte & Mackay in May, and is now determined to see some return on [...]