Business week in review
Related articles
In profit...
If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again.
That appears to be the personal motto of Xavier Rolet, the chief executive at the London Stock Exchange. On Monday, the LSE's shareholders overwhelmingly voted in favour of Rolet's plan to buy up to 60 per cent of London clearing house LCH.Clearnet.
The €813m (£671m) deal is the former investment banker's sixth attempted purchase since he took the reins nearly three years ago. However, last year Rolet ended up with serious egg on his face when he failed to land TMX Group, the operator of the Toronto Stock Exchange, which led to speculation that the LSE could itself become a takeover target.
Now there's a colourful combination: Lonrho, the pan-African group once run by the late takeover obsessive Roland "Tiny" Rowland, has joined forces with Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou's easyGroup. On Tuesday, the companies announced that they would open an easyHotel in Johannesburg by the end of the year, the first of 50 budget hotels they plan to open across Africa by2016.
Jonathan Kaye, the chief executive of pizza chain Prezzo, pleased investors on Wednesday when he announced a 14 per cent increase in pre-tax profit to £16.4m last year.
...at a loss
Newspapers shouldn't really gloat at the troubles of their rivals – what goes around comes around and all that – but it does seem extraordinary that Sly Bailey was paid £1.3m last year, including a £248,000 cash bonus.
Shareholders were unimpressed by the news, which emerged in Monday's annual report, and she now faces changes to her bonus plan. Although her 2011 pay was down on the previous year's, Bailey also received half-a-million shares as part of her incentive package. Still, when 250,000 of these vest in two years they are likely to be worth very little should the stock continue on a trajectory that has seen them lose more than 90 per cent of their value during her reign.
Still, loosely, on newspapers – can't be helped – James Murdoch added BSkyB to his burgeoning list of former chairmanships. On Tuesday, he surrendered a title that he also held at News International, the British publishing arm of the family empire, but he remains a non-executive director.
GDF Suez boss Gérard Mestrallet's £6bn offer for the 30 per cent the French group doesn't own in International Power was rebuffed by the UK electricity group's board on Wednesday.
- 1 Massive stage collapse before Radiohead concert kills one
- 2 News in pictures
- 3 Leveson threatened to quit after public attack by Gove
- 4 In pictures: The bewildering face of China
- 5 Osborne: The people’s damning verdict
- 6 Ed Miliband: 'Cameron is the last gasp of the old guard'
- 7 Savers start a 'jog' on Europe's banks as Greece votes
- 8 For whom the bell tolls: £20m 'Memo' project takes shape on Dorset's Jurassic coast
- 9 Still standing: George Galloway reveals why his staunchly Leftist outlook is still invariably right
- 10 Aung San Suu Kyi: A lesson in the value of kindness
- 1 Massive stage collapse before Radiohead concert kills one
- 2 Patrick Cockburn: Greece's day of reckoning dawns in a climate of anger and uncertainty
- 3 The Blagger's Guide To: The best (and worst) fathers
- 4 We just click: How Lego keeps building on its success
- 5 Revealed: Harry Potter is the Antichrist!
- 6 The Leveson Inquiry: We're in this together!
- 7 Osborne: The people’s damning verdict
- 8 David Flatman: Over and out
- 9 Frank Zimmerman and me: The truth about the troll who tormented Louise Mensch
- 10 Aung San Suu Kyi: A lesson in the value of kindness

Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.

Win a sumptuous three-night stay in Austria
Get away from it all in the fresh mountain air at the four-star Hotel Edelweiss & Gurgl.

Win a five-star foodie weekend to Liège
Spend two nights in gourmet heaven at a top hotel in the capital of French-speaking Belgium.

A home to be proud of with Halifax
Download the Halifax's brilliant, free new Home Finder app, and take all the pain out of finding your dream home

Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.

Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.

Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page

Still standing: George Galloway

Daniel Radcliffe as drug-taking Beatnik poet

Objets czar: David Usborne’s collection of myriad objects

World's richest woman: Gina Rinehart

Comments