THE DAILY BRIEFING
GOVERNOR HOPE A female governor of the Bank of England would be ‘fantastic’, MP Nicky Morgan said, as she acknowledged there are ‘a lot of glass ceilings’ still to be broken. The Conservative former cabinet minister, who chairs the Treasury Select Committee, said that any decision is for those who will appoint Mark Carney’s successor but she noted that diversity was important and felt the message was getting through.
BUYBACK UPDATE Information and analytics firm Relx has completed £650m of a £700m share buyback scheme and will finish it by the end of the year. Sales were up 4pc in the first nine months of the year.
UPBEAT FORECAST German sportswear firm Puma saw betterthanexpected sales in the third quarter. Valued at £5.3bn, it expects revenues to rise by between 14pc and 16pc over the full year, landing it profits of up to £297m.
FINANCE ROLE Power firm Drax has hired Andy Skelton as chief financial officer, to replace Den Jones in January.
SALES BOOST Fashion and homeware chain Oliver Bonas boosted sales by 11.6pc last year, pushing up profits by 2.7pc to £4.2m compared with a year earlier.
REVENUE UP Bulmers and Magners maker C&C Group posted a 6.4pc rise in revenues to £741.9m in the six months to August 31 after buying distributors Matthew Clark and Bibendum from Conviviality.
ON BOARD Irn-Bru owner AG Barr has appointed Superdry’s former finance director Nick Wharton to its board.
COMPUTER CHAOS Production at mining company Metals Exploration fell 30pc below predictions because of a now-fixed computer software error. Its mine schedules were disrupted in the three months to September 30.
PAY CHAIRMAN Ian Penrose is to replace John Jackson as pay committee chairman at gambling firm Playtech from November 1.
SKILLS SHORTAGE The number of new apprenticeships in England fell 25pc over the past year, leading company directors to say there is still a mountain to climb to deliver the skills industry needs. There were 369,700 new starters in the year to July compared with 491,300 in the previous 12 months.