Twitter Users Forced To Switch To New Design

All Twitter users will be forced to use the site's new Facebook-style profile designs, which have split opinion on the social networking site.

On May 28, all Twitter users will have been switched to the new view, which features larger profile and header images and the ability to pin a tweet to the top of a page.

New users of Twitter are already being given the new profiles by default, while some existing users have been switched to the design in the past month.

The company made the announcement in a tweet late on Tuesday.

Katy Perry is Twitter's most-followed person, and still has the old design

The new design looks more cluttered than the old Twitter set-up, and opinion has been mixed among users.

Meanwhile Twitter shares hit new lows on Tuesday, sinking 17.8% to close at $31.85 (£18.76) - the lowest level since its initial public offering (IPO) in November.

It followed the expiration of the so-called lockup period, which banned sales by company insiders after the IPO.

Twitter's Wall Street debut was impressive, with shares rising from a $26 (£15.31) offering price to more than $70 (£41.23).

But it has been damaged by concerns over its slowing growth and doubts on profitability.

In late April it posts a net loss of $132.4m (£79m).

Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and chief executive Dick Costolo said they have no short-term plan to sell their shares.

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The £140bn Web Giant Unknown By Most In West

By Tom Cheshire, Technology Correspondent

It's the tech company whose founder doesn't really like technology - a $245bn (£144.3bn) e-commerce giant that doesn't actually sell anything.

Now, though, Alibaba has filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in New York - potentially the biggest in history, even topping Facebook's $16bn (£9.4bn) flotation two years ago.

So what's the story behind the biggest company you've never heard of?

Alibaba is China's e-commerce giant - equivalent to an amalgam of Amazon and eBay.

It does not sell its own goods directly but works as a marketplace for more or less anything.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma was rejected by Harvard 10 times

You can buy everything from lawn mowers to Prada handbags.

Categories include agriculture, automobiles, chemicals, electronics, food, minerals and mechanical parts.

The company operates mainly in China, which is why few people in Britain have heard of it.

But because there are so many internet users (and keen shoppers), Alibaba is huge.

Last year, nearly 231 million users traded £146bn worth of goods through the platform - more than Amazon and eBay put together.

Alibaba's cut meant revenues of £3.8bn for the company and a profit of £1.84bn.

Compare that with Amazon, which made £44bn in revenue but only £161m in profit.

CEO Jack Ma, a former English teacher who was rejected by Harvard 10 times, founded Alibaba in 1999 but says he does not spend much time online.

Instead he gets an assistant to download movies for him to watch on his iPad and says he prefers Tai Chi and traditional medicine.

He told a crowd at Stanford University last year: "That you don't know about technology, doesn't mean you don't respect technology."

It has certainly not held him back. In the filing, Alibaba said it "will be a company that lasts at least 102 years".

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PM 'Wants More' From Pfizer Takeover Bid

David Cameron says he is not satisfied with the commitments given by the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in the face of concerns about its takeover bid for AstraZeneca.

While the Prime Minister said the promises made so far - including retaining at least 20% of the research and development (R&D) workforce in the UK - were "encouraging", he indicated the firm had yet to convince him the merger would be in the national interest.

Mr Cameron rejected accusations by the Labour leader Ed Miliband that he was "cheerleading" for the deal, but told MPs the UK "benefits massively" from foreign investment and he warned against putting this at risk.

The £63bn offer by Pfizer - described by AstraZeneca as significantly undervaluing the business - has been rebuffed.

David Cameron has rejected Labour claims he is "cheerleading" for the deal

But executives have not given up hope of completing a deal, which if it goes through would be the biggest ever foreign takeover of a British company.

Fears have been raised that resulting cost-cutting could cause the loss of thousands of highly skilled jobs and undermine the UK's science base.

Labour is pressing for a law change to ensure any takeover of AstraZeneca is subjected to a public interest test.

Referring to the commitments already made by Pfizer, Mr Cameron said: "Let me be absolutely clear, I'm not satisfied, I want more.

"But the way to get more is to engage, not to stand up and play party politics.

"The more we can do to strengthen the assurances the better."

He said he agreed with the position taken by Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable, who refused on Tuesday to rule out intervening to block a formal bid.

Mr Cameron said: "The most important intervention we can make is to back British jobs, British science, British R&D, British medicines and British technology."

He added: "There is more inward investment into Britain today than the rest of the European Union combined. Don't let's put that at risk."

Asked later what further commitments the PM was looking for, a source said: "We are taking a long, hard look at what we can do to strengthen assurances."

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Scots Independence: Rest Of UK Firms Want Union

By Niall Paterson, Sky News Correspondent

An overwhelming majority of businesses in England, Wales and Northern Ireland say that Scotland should remain part of the UK, according to a survey for the British Chambers of Commerce.

The BCC, which itself remains impartial in the debate, surveyed close to 2,500 of its members, and whilst 11% said Scotland should vote yes, some 85% preferred the union to remain.

Two thirds said no new opportunities would arise in the event of a 'Yes' vote, and just over a third, 35%, said a formal currency union, a key ambition of the SNP-led campaign, would be in the best interests of the UK as a whole.

The BCC's director general John Longworth said: "Business opinion across the United Kingdom on the Scottish independence debate is far from unanimous. That's only logical, as businesses have different interests, and different views on our complex history of economic and political union.

"In the event of a 'Yes' vote, cross-border trading and currency arrangements loom large in businesses' thinking. If Scotland votes 'no', constitutional questions remain around the devolution of power and the distribution of public funding between nations."

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond (R) and his deputy Nicola Sturgeon

The poll has been seized upon by those campaigning for a 'No' vote, as with a recent report from credit ratings agency Moody's which said an independent Scotland would find itself downgraded.

Edinburgh South Labour MP and Shadow Business Minister Ian Murray said: "This survey confirms what some of Scotland's largest employers like Standard Life, RBS and Shell have made clear. Breaking up the UK would create huge risks and cost jobs in Scotland.

"The majority of businesses in the rest of the UK do not support a currency union. It would be bad for Scotland and bad for the rest of the UK. That's why it is off the table.

"What people in Scotland need from the nationalists is some honesty about what would replace the pound if we leave the UK. Would we rush to adopt the euro or would we set up a separate Scottish currency? The idea that Scots can go to the polls blind on this fundamental issue isn't credible."

Yet there is hardly unanimity north of the border either - nor an overwhelming sense of fear that cross-border trade would come to a juddering halt.

Many here expect business to continue if not entirely as normal then with significant benefits in the longer term.

Tony Banks, chairman of Business for Scotland, a pro-independence campaign group with close to two thousand members said: "This is a survey that of course doesn't include Scottish businesses who have a rather different perception.

"Scottish independence offers real advantages to everyone, not only in Scotland but across our shared markets in Europe - that independence doesn't equal isolation and businesses here are well aware of the opportunities they can gain.

"Even the Scottish Chambers of Commerce survey issued last week conceded that 53% of its members see the opportunities that independence could bring."

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Former Co-op Boss Flowers Fined Over Drugs

Co-op Reform Critics Must Back Overhaul: Myners

Updated: 2:03pm UK, Wednesday 07 May 2014

Former City minister Lord Myners has warned the Co-operative Group will not survive unless members get behind his recommendations for reforming its governance structure.

His review's findings - which include the abolition of the group's 21-member board to be replaced by a slimmed-down body containing more expert, corporate figures - will be put before the Co-op's AGM in Manchester on May 17.

The damning 184-page report seeks to win over traditionalists "stuck in denial" over the need for change after regional membership boards and independent societies voiced opposition to his interim proposals in March.

Lord Myners later quit as a Co-op director after just four months.

The review followed a tide of pain for the Group, which recently revealed an annual loss of £2.5bn - the bulk of that put down to the continuing problems at the Co-op Bank, now in the clutches of US hedge funds after its rescue from near collapse.

In an interview with Sky News, Lord Myners argued the bank crisis epitomised the scale of the incompetence he had witnessed.

He said: "How the board of the Co-op two years ago thought it could acquire the branch businesses of Lloyds TSB is beyond imagination.

"I cannot imagine a group of people less equipped, less competent, to own and control a bank.

"It took me half an hour of sitting in my first board meeting of the Co-op to realise what a shambles the board was."

He spoke out against the culture of the Group as the bank's former chairman, Paul Flowers, was being fined after admitting drug possession.

The peer slammed the fact that the 15 lay directors on the current board were drawn from a total eligible pool of only 35 regional board members including an engineer, a plasterer and a retired deputy head teacher.

He said that apart from the lack of relevant skills and experience "this has not even been genuine democracy at work" - telling Sky's Dharshini David that every member of the board should go bar one member from the North West.

Ursula Lidbetter, Chair of The Co-operative Group, responded: "The Co-operative Group welcomes the report from Lord Myners and we are grateful to him and his team for producing such a detailed and comprehensive review so rapidly.

"The Board of the Group has made clear its commitment to far-reaching and fundamental reform of our governance.

"A resolution containing four key principles on reform is being put to members at a General Meeting in May and we will build from there to ensure we put the right changes in place".

Lord Myners spoke of his hopes that the membership adopted change at the AGM.

He said: "I have no doubt that the Co-operative Group can over the next five years reverse a decline that started over 50 years ago. But I am less confident that it will choose to do so.

"Much will depend on the small number of 'elected democrats', less than one in 10,000 of the group's entire membership.

"Will they put their self-interest to one side for the greater good, acknowledging the collective failure of the current board and the crippling deficiencies of the entire governance system?

"I would say that the Group board and many on the regional boards are still stuck in denial over this near ruinous failure of governance, whereas the vast majority of ordinary members feel justified anger."

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Sainsbury's Posts Slowest Growth For A Decade

The pressure on the major supermarket chains from discounters were underlined by Sainsbury's annual results which showed the slowest profits growth for a decade.

Underlying profit before tax at the chain rose 5.3% to £798m in the year to March 15 though like-for-like sales for the period were almost flat, edging up just 0.2%.

While the performance capped nine years of profits growth for outgoing boss Justin King, he warned conditions in the food sector were likely to remain challenging for the foreseeable future as consumers remained cautious.

Sainsbury's, which trails market leader Tesco and is battling Asda to be the country's second-largest supermarket chain, has credited a focus on quality and affordable own-brand products for its ability to grow sales.

Tesco, Asda and Morrisons recently announced big price cut campaigns in a bid to arrest sliding market shares and profits though the latest market figures suggest Morrisons and Tesco are yet to win back lost custom.

Discounters Aldi and Lidl have benefited at their expense while upmarket chains Waitrose and Marks & Spencer are also gaining
share.

Shares in both Morrisons and Sainsbury's fell during trading on Wednesday - Morrisons by more than 6% at one stage.

Mr King, who will hand over the reins at Sainsbury's to commercial director Mike Coupe in July after 10 years in charge, warned: "While the general economic outlook is showing some signs of improvement, conditions in the food retail sector are likely to remain
challenging for the foreseeable future as customers continue to spend cautiously."

But he told Sky News: "We've had a very strong year. I leave in a couple of months and I'm very proud to be able to announce these results today on behalf of the 160,000 colleagues at Sainsbury's."

The chain insisted it was confident its differentiated offer, which includes a focus on own brand products, the "Brand Match" pricing scheme and the Nectar loyalty card, would allow it to outperform peers in the year ahead.

Though Sainsbury's current 16.6% market share is hovering around a decade-high, there are worrying signs too after its nine-year run of quarterly sales growth came to an end in its fourth quarter, when like-for-like sales fell 3.1%.

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ICAP Boss Gets Bonus Despite £55m Libor Fine

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

The chief executive of the City broking firm ICAP has had his annual bonus slashed in the wake of its £55m fine for its role in the Libor rate-rigging scandal.

Sky News has learnt Michael Spencer, a former Conservative Party treasurer, has been awarded a cash-and-shares bonus for last year worth approximately £700,000, a roughly 75% cut on his payout for 2012.

Mr Spencer's bonus will be publicly disclosed alongside ICAP's full-year results next week.

Some of the remuneration decisions were contained in a letter from Charles Gregson, ICAP's chairman, to the company's 10 biggest shareholders, a copy of which has been seen by Sky News.

Insiders said on Wednesday that ICAP's board had debated whether it was appropriate to award Mr Spencer a bonus for a year in which the company had been forced to pay substantial sums to financial regulators in the UK and US.

Directors had reached a consensus that paying a significantly-reduced bonus would reflect the seriousness with which the company viewed the regulatory breaches, but also acknowledged Mr Spencer had had no knowledge of or involvement in those breaches.

The response from leading ICAP shareholders to the bonus decisions is understood to have been broadly positive, although the detailed nature of Mr Gregson's explanation underlines the growing pressure on remuneration committees to justify potentially-controversial pay awards.

ICAP's regulatory settlement was announced last September, making it the fourth financial institution to be fined for its role in the Libor affair after Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS.

"The remuneration committee considered at length what impact the settlements with the (Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the US) and the (UK Financial Conduct Authority) should have on relevant senior management's compensation," the letter from Mr Gregson said.

"The executive directors' bonus pool for the year has been impacted by lower-than-budgeted trading profit and further reduced by the full amount of the exceptional costs relating to the Libor settlement."

The move to hit directors in the pocket by deducting Libor-related legal costs from their bonuses echoes similar moves at other affected firms.

A source close to ICAP said Mr Spencer, who is one of the City's wealthiest men, had not had an increase in his base salary of £360,000 for 15 years, and said his bonus had been reduced by a greater proportion than those of his colleagues.

The remuneration decisions disclosed in the letter also include roughly one-third reductions in the bonuses of two other senior ICAP executives, Iain Torrens and John Nixon.

Mr Nixon will receive $83,333 (£49,100) as a monthly fee for consulting services that he will provide when he retires in March next year.

ICAP declined to comment on the letter on Wednesday.

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Co-op Reform Critics Must Back Overhaul: Myners

Former City minister Lord Myners has warned the Co-operative Group will not survive unless members get behind his recommendations for reforming its governance structure.

His review's findings - which include the abolition of the group's 21-member board to be replaced by a slimmed-down body containing more expert, corporate figures - will be put before the Co-op's AGM in Manchester on May 17.

The damning 184-page report seeks to win over traditionalists "stuck in denial" over the need for change after regional membership boards and independent societies voiced opposition to his interim proposals in March.

Lord Myners argues the Co-op is "not fit for purpose"

Lord Myners later quit as a Co-op director after just four months.

The review followed a tide of pain for the Group, which recently revealed an annual loss of £2.5bn - the bulk of that put down to the continuing problems at the Co-op Bank, now in the clutches of US hedge funds after its rescue from near collapse.

In an interview with Sky News, Lord Myners argued the bank crisis epitomised the scale of the incompetence he had witnessed.

He said: "How the board of the Co-op two years ago thought it could acquire the branch businesses of Lloyds TSB is beyond imagination.

"I cannot imagine a group of people less equipped, less competent, to own and control a bank.

"It took me half an hour of sitting in my first board meeting of the Co-op to realise what a shambles the board was."

He spoke out against the culture of the Group as the bank's former chairman, Paul Flowers, was being fined after admitting drug possession.

The peer slammed the fact that the 15 lay directors on the current board were drawn from a total eligible pool of only 35 regional board members including an engineer, a plasterer and a retired deputy head teacher.

He said that apart from the lack of relevant skills and experience "this has not even been genuine democracy at work" - telling Sky's Dharshini David that every member of the board should go bar one member from the North West.

Ursula Lidbetter, Chair of The Co-operative Group, responded: "The Co-operative Group welcomes the report from Lord Myners and we are grateful to him and his team for producing such a detailed and comprehensive review so rapidly.

"The Board of the Group has made clear its commitment to far-reaching and fundamental reform of our governance.

"A resolution containing four key principles on reform is being put to members at a General Meeting in May and we will build from there to ensure we put the right changes in place".

Lord Myners spoke of his hopes that the membership adopted change at the AGM.

He said: "I have no doubt that the Co-operative Group can over the next five years reverse a decline that started over 50 years ago. But I am less confident that it will choose to do so.

"Much will depend on the small number of 'elected democrats', less than one in 10,000 of the group's entire membership.

"Will they put their self-interest to one side for the greater good, acknowledging the collective failure of the current board and the crippling deficiencies of the entire governance system?

"I would say that the Group board and many on the regional boards are still stuck in denial over this near ruinous failure of governance, whereas the vast majority of ordinary members feel justified anger."

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Alibaba Confirms New York Share Sale Plans

Chinese online powerhouse Alibaba, which makes more money than Amazon and eBay combined, has filed for a public share sale in the United States.

The flotation of the company, which incorporates a search engine, online shops and payment service platforms, as well as business-to-business web portals and cloud computing services, could be one of the biggest ever seen in the country.

The firm said its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in New York would seek to raise at least $1bn (£589m) but the figure was seen by analysts as a random sum given its ambitions.

Market experts believe the figure will more likely surpass the $16bn (£9.4bn) Facebook and its early investors raised two years ago.

Alibaba, a privately-owned firm, was started in 1999 with just $60,000 (£35,300) in the apartment of Jack Ma, a former English school teacher with no previous experience in business or technology.

Its growth matches that of China's own economy in terms of scale.

The company, which did not say whether it would use the New York Stock Exchange or the tech-based Nasdaq for the listing, enjoyed profits of $2.9bn (£1.7bn) on revenue of nearly $6.5bn (£3.8bn) through the first nine months of its last fiscal year ending in March.

That topped the combined earnings of $2.4bn (£1.4bn) posted during the same April-December stretch by eBay and Amazon.

A 40% investment by Yahoo! - since reduced to 26% - aided Alibaba's competitive position in China to the extent that eBay abandoned the country in 2006, just four years after breaking into its market.

Alibaba's success has provided a financial lifeline for Yahoo!, whose stake in the Chinese company is the main reason its own stock price has more than doubled in the past two years.

It is expected to sell more than 200 million shares at the time of the IPO - a core reason why many analysts believe the flotation will seek to raise close to the record $18bn (£10.6bn) enjoyed by Visa.

However, the timing of the listing will be seen as crucial, with several high profile IPOs falling flat in recent times amid pressure on tech stocks over fears some service-based firms are overvalued.

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Ex-Trade Minister Eyes Co-op Bank Investment

By Mark Kleinman, City Editor

A private equity firm which counts a former Government minister among its executives is in talks to buy a stake in the Co-op's banking arm as part of its £400m rescue fundraising.

Sky News has learnt that Corsair Capital, where Lord Davies, the former trade minister, is a partner, is one of several private equity groups and hedge funds which are lining up to put tens of millions of pounds into the mutual's struggling banking arm.

Apollo Management, one of the world's largest investment firms, is also understood to have expressed an interest.

The opportunity for new investors to acquire a stake in the Co-op Bank is expected to arise because some existing shareholders, including the Co-op Group, are unlikely to take up their full allocation of rights to buy new shares.

These rights are then sold in a process known as tail-swallowing.

The Co-op Group owned the entirety of its banking arm until last year, when the discovery of a £1.5bn black hole in the lender's balance sheet forced it to shrink its ownership interest, ceding control to bondholders such as the US hedge funds Perry Capital and Silver Point.

The Group now owns 30%, and owes more than £250m as part of the initial fundraising, as well as a further £120m that would be required to maintain its stake at that level.

It is likely to invest sufficient funds to keep its stake above 20%, executives have indicated, since the bank's ability to continue using the Co-op name could be jeopardised if it fell below that level.

The need to raise an additional £400m emerged in March as the legacy of past insurance mis-selling, IT glitches and other problems continues to haunt the mutual.

Corsair's potential investment in the Co-op Bank is interesting both because of Lord Davies's role at the firm, and its plan to acquire a significant stake in a network of more than 300 Royal Bank of Scotland branches being sold by the state-backed lender.

That deal will result in the stock market listing of Williams & Glyn, which will also be backed by the Church of England's pension fund, probably in 2016.

A report published last week by Sir Christopher Kelly, a former civil servant, castigated the former management of the Co-op Bank, pinning much of the blame for its £1.3bn loss in 2013 on the decision to merge with the Britannia Building Society in 2009.

A string of other inquiries are also under way into the crisis, although the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority are unlikely to complete their reports for some time.

Up to £5m in bonuses owed to former Co-op Bank directors have been withheld, although its ability to claw back money already paid to them is severely restricted.

A spokeswoman for the Co-op Bank declined to comment on the progress of its £400m capital-raising, while neither Apollo nor Corsair could be reached for comment.

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