Winter floods City at annual Christmas bash April 10, 2014 WITH May fast approaching you might think festive parties are a distant, mulled wine-filled memory but not for Winterflood Securities, which held its annual and undeniably epic Christmas party last night. The Old Billingsgate building down on the Thames provided a new but bountiful platform for the do. This year’s theme was old school City [...]
How much will the floods costs insurers? March 3, 2014 The recent soaking that considerable chunks of the country received will cost the insurance industry around £1.2bn, according the ratings agency Fitch. The losses relating to the floods will be “manageable”, Fitch said this morning, with the hit to insurers’ earnings remaining “limited”. It stressed firms are prepared for such events: These insurers are typically [...]
Row as tennis stars faint in 42C heatwave January 14, 2014 AUSTRALIAN Open tennis chiefs were forced to defend their refusal to implement an extreme heat policy yesterday after players and ball boys fainted on court as temperatures in Melbourne rocketed past 42C. Canadian Frank Dancevic called the decision to allow matches to continue “inhumane” after he passed out from heatstroke during his first-round defeat, adding: [...]
Gatwick says sorry for chaos after biblical Christmas floods January 7, 2014 GATWICK has made a fresh apology to passengers left stranded on Christmas Eve, after it emerged that the airport’s chief executive was on holiday in Newcastle as staff struggled to find enough bus drivers to move passengers. Chief executive Stewart Wingate said the airport had just half an hour’s warning of the “biblical” flooding that [...]
July heatwave drives UK retail sales up August 15, 2013 The third warmest July on record drove Britons to the shops in hoardes, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. Retail sales rose at an annual rate of 3.0 per cent, beating even the more optimistic of estimates. By comparison, annual growth in June was 2.2 per cent. The primary driver of growth [...]
Heatwave slows machine sales at Ladbrokes August 8, 2013 LADBROKES said yesterday profits almost halved in the first six months of the year, blaming July’s heatwave as customers shunned gaming machines at its high street outlets. Pre-tax profits at the betting company slumped 48.5 per cent to £55.1m for the six months to 30 June, down from £106.9m in the same period last year. [...]