Written By Unknown on Rabu, 21 Januari 2015 | 00.26
By Sky News US Team
Twitter is buying Indian start-up ZipDial, seeking to expand in the world's second-biggest mobile market.
The microblogging service did not disclose terms of the purchase, but TechCrunch put the deal at $30m to $40m (£20m to £26.5m).
ZipDial, based in the tech hub of Bangalore in southern India, has capitalised on a local tradition of communicating through so-called missed calls.
A person may give a friend a missed call to signal arrival at an agreed destination, for instance, without having to pay the cost of a phone call.
Valerie Wagoner, founder and chief executive of ZipDial, told the Wall Street Journal that the company managed to reach Indians who do not have an internet connection, saying that a portion of those who have smartphones still cannot afford data access.
ZipDial gives clients phone numbers for use in marketing campaigns.
Consumers call the numbers and hang up before connecting and incurring charges, and then receive promotion-related text messages.
Its clients include International Business Machines Corp, Yum! KFC and Gillette.
"This acquisition significantly increases our investment in India, one of the countries where we're seeing great growth," Twitter said in a statement.
In recent years Twitter has bought Tweetdeck, mobile advertising company Mopub, and Bluefin Labs, a start-up that analyses online comments on TV shows.
Dairy farmers are being driven out of business every week and need greater protection, MPs have warned.
Milk prices have been hit hard by a Russian trade ban and falling demand from China which saw prices plummet from 34p a litre last year to 20p a litre.
It means the total number of UK dairy farmers has now fallen below 10,000 for the first time.
MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee have said more must be done to help them survive.
Farmers protest over prices in 2012
They want to see the groceries watchdog - the Groceries Code Adjudicator - given the power to punish the big supermarkets if they are found to put pressure on the farmers to drop their prices.
And they have urged ministers to push for clear country of origin labelling so consumers know they are buying British.
The MPs have also suggested farmers consider forming producer organisations to increase their power and influence in the market.
Committee chairwoman Anne McIntosh said: "The volatility of worldwide and domestic milk markets is making financial planning and investment impossible for small-scale producers unable to hedge against changes beyond their control.
"The vast majority of dairy farmers fall outside the protection offered by the Groceries Code Adjudicator.
"She can only investigate complaints involving direct suppliers to the big 10 supermarkets and retailers, and as most milk production is small-scale, that excludes most dairy farmers."
There has been a significant slump in milk prices
A Government spokesman said: "We understand the concerns of British farmers over the current pressures on milk prices caused by the volatility of the global market and we are doing all we can to help manage this.
"This includes giving dairy farmers the opportunity to unite in producer organisations so they have greater clout in the marketplace.
"We have also brokered a dairy industry code of practice on contractual relationships to improve transparency and give farmers a fairer deal, which now covers 85% of UK dairy production."
The City regulator has announced proposals to make it easier to compare and switch cash savings accounts, saying the market is not working well for consumers.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) study found £160bn of funds in the £700bn market were earning the same or less than the 0.5% Bank of England interest rate.
It also suggested that older accounts tended to earn less in interest than those opened more recently, with 80% of easy-access accounts not being switched in the last three years.
Potential remedies, which are going to consultation, include reducing the current 15-day switching time for cash ISAs and improved communication with customers to provide better clarity on interest rates.
The watchdog stopped short of banning introductory rates but said consumers needed to be better informed on rate movements to aid shopping around.
The FCA said it was clear the market "does not work well" for consumers, particularly those with long-standing accounts.
Director of competition Christopher Woolard said: "In a good market firms should be competing to offer the best possible deal and consumers should have the information they need to help them shop around.
"We want to see firms making simple information much easier to find. More also needs to be done to reduce the hassle for consumers to switch their savings.
"The steps we have proposed today are designed to make the market more dynamic, working in everyone's interest."
The Bank of England's base rate of interest has been at its record low of 0.5% since March 2009.
The impact has hit savers hard and driven many towards the stock market in search of returns.
Previous research by the consumer group Which? found people were losing out on £4.3bn annually by leaving savings in poor-value accounts.
Richard Lloyd, its executive director, said of the FCA's proposed action: "For too long, banks and building societies have left customers trapped in savings accounts paying woefully low interest rates and losing out on billions.
"We now expect to see the industry working with the regulator to make these recommendations a reality as soon as possible.
"The banks must quickly start playing fair and help consumers get a good deal."
The forecast has been slashed for global economic growth this year - with the UK's outlook also taking a hit.
The International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook update said that apart from in the US, the economic performance of all major economies had fallen short of expectations.
It also appeared to back further stimulus measures that look likely to be unveiled in the eurozone this week.
The IMF estimated that gross domestic product (GDP) in Britain grew by 2.6% in 2014 compared to a previous forecast of 3.2%.
It still expects the UK to grow by 2.7% this year while it has cut its forecast for 2016 by 0.1% to 2.4%.
Video:IMF: New Growth Fears For Eurozone
Global growth is expected to be 0.3% weaker - at 3.5% for 2015 and 3.7% for 2016.
Chancellor George Osborne said: "Today's IMF forecast shows Britain is pulling ahead, while global growth is being downgraded.
"But there are risks out there in the global economy.
Video:Oil: Winners and Losers
"It's a timely reminder of that and we've got to go on working through our long-term economic plan if we want to stay ahead."
The IMF said the cut in estimates reflected prospects in China, Russia, the eurozone and Japan.
There had also been weaker activity in some major oil exporters - with oil prices having dropped by more than half since September.
Video:Why Is BP Cutting Jobs?
"The boost from lower oil prices is expected to be more than offset by an adjustment to lower medium-term growth in most major economies other than the United States," the IMF said.
Scottish Power has become the latest of the so-called 'Big Six' energy firms to cut its standard gas price.
Like its rival British Gas, the company said it would be waiting a month before implementing the reduction.
The 4.8% cut will come into force on 20 February - benefiting 1.1 million of its customers.
E.ON has already implemented a 3.5% reduction following a 30% fall in wholesale costs over the past 12 months, though firms have argued it will take time for this to filter through because raw energy is purchased up to three years in advance.
However, consumer groups have accused them of always being quick to raise prices when wholesale costs go up and slow to react to falls.
Neil Clitheroe, ScottishPower's CEO of Retail and Generation, said: "We are pleased to be able to pass on this price reduction to our customers, which will see the average annual gas bill on our standard tariff reduce by £33.
"Today, we have also launched a new fixed-price tariff which is one of the most competitive in the marketplace, with an average dual fuel bill value of £930.
"All ScottishPower customers can take advantage of our best deals by contacting us or visiting our website.
"Customers already on fixed-priced tariffs can also move between our tariffs at any time, without paying any exit fees.
"Today's decision has been made to benefit our customers and keep our prices competitive.
"We will continue to keep our prices under review. Our pricing reflects all of the costs that contribute to a customer's bill.
"The wholesale price of energy accounts for half of a customer's gas bill, but non-energy costs such as transmission and distribution networks and environmental and social obligations remain unaffected by any wholesale energy price movements."
The reductions have fallen short of industry estimates, which suggested bills could fall by £136 a year if suppliers passed on the full reduction in wholesale prices.
An in-depth investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority is currently ongoing in the energy sector, which could force the larger firms to break up.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey said: "Competition is hotting up and customers will see the benefits. With the market getting more competitive there's even more pressure on other energy companies to drop their prices.
"If people aren't seeing price cuts, now is the perfect time to check their tariff and see what deals are on the market."
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has lost his High Court battle over being held liable for the rent on a London pub he bought.
The pub deal took place when his father-in-law Christopher Hutcheson was at the helm of his business and helping him build his restaurant empire.
The chef accused Mr Hutcheson of using a ghost writer machine, more commonly used by authors to sign books and photographs automatically, to forge his signature on a document which made him the personal guarantor for the costly £640,000 annual rent of the exclusive York & Albany pub near Regent's Park.
Mr Justice Morgan, sitting in London, refused to grant a declaration that the rental guarantee was not binding because Mr Ramsay's signature "was not lawfully authorised" when the 25-year lease was signed in 2007.
The judge said: "I find that when Mr Hutcheson committed Mr Ramsay to the guarantee in the lease of the premises, Mr Hutcheson was acting within the wide general authority conferred on him by Mr Ramsay at all times until Mr Hutcheson's dismissal in October 2010."
Justice Morgan added: "Mr Ramsay may now regret the transaction in relation to the premises. He may particularly regret his involvement as a guarantor.
"He may consider that Mr Hutcheson did a bad deal. However, on any finding, he is not able to say that Mr Hutcheson exceeded his authority in any respect.
"I hold that Mr Ramsay, acting though his agent Mr Hutcheson, is bound by the guarantee in the lease of the premises."
Film director Gary Love, who owns the York & Albany, described Ramsay's allegation as an "absurd" attempt to wriggle out of his rental commitments.
The judge ordered Ramsay to make an interim payment to Mr Love of £250,000 pending final settlement of the bill.
Ramsay also faces a large bill from his own lawyers which is likely to take his total payout to more than £1m.
Mr Ramsay told the judge he felt "like a performing monkey" while Mr Hutcheson was managing his business.
His wife, Tana, said in evidence that the discovery that her father and brother were "systematically defrauding" her husband was "extremely distressing".
Mrs Ramsay, a close friend of Victoria Beckham, said she was aware of the use of the ghost writer machine but thought it was for signing merchandising when her husband was unavailable.
She added: "It did not even occur to me that the machine might be used to sign Gordon's signature on anything else."
Mr Justice Morgan dismissed as "entirely implausible" Mr Ramsay's claim that he also did not know the full extent of the use of the ghost machine.
Mr Hutcheson acted as business manager for the Ramsay group of companies until the chef sacked him and Mrs Ramsay's brother, Adam, on the grounds of "gross misconduct" in 2010.
Tana and Ramsay married in 1996 and have four children. In court Mrs Ramsay spoke about her "dominating, very clever" father.
The frozen-food company at the centre of the horsemeat scandal which engulfed the industry in 2013 is being prepared for a sale that will value its UK arm at hundreds of millions of pounds.
Sky News has learnt that shareholders in Findus Group have begun discussions about a possible sale of the UK operations later this year.
Findus is owned by three investors following a financial restructuring in 2012 which saw Highbridge Capital and JP Morgan join Lion Capital as equal one-third shareholders.
Lion bought Findus, which also has operations in France and Scandinavia, in 2008 in a deal worth £1.1bn and was forced to defend itself from an attempt four years later by Triton Partners, another fund, to seize control of the business.
Banking sources said that advisers had not yet been appointed to auction the UK division but said such a move was likely in the coming months.
A formal decision to proceed with a process had not yet been taken, they added.
In a statement issued to Sky News, Findus insisted that there was "no sale process underway for the UK business, or any part of the Findus Group at this time".
It went on to acknowledge, however, that "the owners and senior executives of Findus Group keep their long-term options continuously under review".
Findus was caught at the centre of the horsemeat scandal when it emerged that some of its beef products in fact contained 100% horsemeat.
The company was accused of responding ponderously to the crisis, eventually withdrawing products from supermarket shelves and promising a full review of its supply chain at the instigation of the Food Standards Agency.
Findus's sales performance has since recovered strongly, according to people close to the business, allowing the company to issue a £200m bond last year.
That deal is understood to have resulted in a multi-million pound payout to investors.
Now run by James Hill, a former veteran of the consumer goods giant Unilever, a sale of Findus's UK business would come as its biggest rival, Iglo Group, is also being prepared for a change of ownership.
Iglo, which owns Birds Eye, is backed by the private equity firm Permira, which is expected to examine a sale or stock market listing this year.
China's economy has expanded at its slowest pace in 24 years.
Statistics published by the Chinese government show that the world's second largest economy grew by 7.4% in 2014 compared with 7.7% in 2013.
The government target of 7.5% was missed but the level was still above market predictions as low as 7.1%.
The slowdown comes as China attempts to rebalance its economy from an export-led market to one which must rely on domestic consumption. A global slowdown means China can no longer rely on its "Made in China" exports.
Chinese government officials see the slowdown as inevitable and say the delicate rebalance represents the 'new normal'.
However it will cause nervousness around the world with economies globally tied into China. Bilateral trade between China and the UK stands at £53bn – a record high.
Wang Jianlan was China's richest man for a period last year
A further breakdown of figures was provided by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics at a news conference in Beijing.
One of China's few official measures of its unemployment rate put it at 5.1% in 2014. Economists say the true figure is almost certainly higher.
Video:19 Nov: Why China's Economy Matters
In an exclusive interview with Sky News, the Chairman of Chinese property and entertainment giant Dalian-Wanda, said the slowdown is a "painful" process.
"For China, over the past two years, there has been an obvious decline and slowdown. But in fact this is just an adjustment," Wang Jianlin said.
"Although this year, the economy is slowing down, but there is an obvious improvement in domestic consumption which is increasing much faster than the exports. Of course it's a painful process."
But he added: "Chinese economic growth of around 7% a year shouldn't be a problem. The Chinese economy definitely won't collapse."
For a period last year, Mr Wang was China's richest man.
Video:Chinese People Must Provide Growth
According to Forbes, he is currently worth £12bn, but has slipped three notches on the Forbes list this year due to lower values for the commercial real estate owned by his Dalian Wanda Group."
China's property sector has been a big drag on its economy.
In cities all over China, skyscrapers and apartment blocks are shooting up. They've been building across China for years: the consequence of government encouragement to borrow and build. But many sit empty; some are only half built.
Sky News visited the central Chinese city of Xianning, which has been officially declared a ghost city.
It's not deserted. Far from it. 31 million people live in Xianning, but that is only 30% of its capacity.
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Gallery: Chinese Paris Becomes 'Ghost Town'
Officially launched in 2007 amid claims it could comfortably house 100,000 people, a gated community in China modelled on the French capital is now being described as a "ghost town".
Tianducheng, on the outskirts of Shanghai, received the unwanted moniker from local media due to its sparse and seemingly dwindling population.
Police forces are being accused of not doing enough to tackle a boom in shoplifting.
A survey shows a 36% rise in the money lost in shop thefts, the highest figure for a decade.
But most shoplifting goes unreported because shopkeepers do not believe the police will respond, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
It said: "Despite the high level of theft, and evidence that some retailers are adopting more consistent "no exception" policies to reporting offences to the police, the majority of customer theft remains unreported.
"This is an indication that businesses continue to lack confidence in the police response to customer theft.
"The perception remains that some quarters of law enforcement view theft as a 'victimless' crime which is not taken seriously."
Video:Shoplifting Hits 10-Year High
Toy shop owner Steve Mohabir, who runs The Toy Box in Godalming, Surrey, said he faced increasing thefts but found police were rarely willing to arrest suspects.
He said: "To be totally honest I'm really furious.
"I pay a high business rate, but I don't get the police service I need, no local bobby keeping an eye on retailers and our problems.
"If I report shoplifting I get told 'it's not very much' and nothing is done about it, but if it's an armed robbery at the bank they are much more interested."
Mr Mohabir said he has had to resort to investing in an expensive CCTV system and then shaming shoplifters by putting their images on his Facebook page.
The BRC's 2014 retail crime survey put the annual cost of all crime at £603m, an increase of 18%, with a total of three million crimes.
As well as the increase in shoplifting, fraud rose by 12% - more than half committed by organised gangs - and cyber crime also went up.
Video:One Retailer's Battle With Thieves
However, robbery, burglary and criminal damage fell.
The BRC's Director General, Helen Dickinson, said: "In my foreword to last year's report I said that a step change improvement in the law enforcement response to fraud was a desperately needed reform. A year on, this remains the case.
"Although there remains at times a lack of confidence among retailers about the service they receive from police and the criminal justice system, businesses are keen to work with partners to reduce retail crime."
Deputy Chief Constable Sue Fish, the National Policing Lead for Retail Crime, said: "Police have been working closely with businesses and retailers for several years, including British Retail Consortium, to help them prevent theft whether from stores or online.
"Stores need to ensure that they have the right security and working practices in place and heed advice to prevent them from being targeted.
"Without retailers making these changes, police will not be able to work in partnership to reduce this type of crime.
"Retailers need to report crimes against them to us so that we can investigate and ensure we have a full picture of offending; our ability to help is undermined if we aren't receiving information about crimes committed."
A crisis-hit London-listed oil company has drafted in restructuring advisers amid growing concern among its lenders about the impact of a prolonged slump in global oil prices.
Sky News understands that a financial restructuring team from Morgan Stanley, the investment bank, is working with Afren, which operates across Africa and in Kurdistan, to assess the company's options if a putative takeover bid falls apart.
Afren, which has seen its share price crash by more than 84% during the last year, leaving it with a market value of just £307m, is in talks to be bought by Seplat, a Nigerian oil producer.
Morgan Stanley is broker to Afren and is working with it on the takeover discussions, and sources said a team from the bank was also now working with it on restructuring options amid City expectations that it could breach its borrowing agreements.
Afren's lenders are understood to have asked PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accountancy firm, to advise them on a possible restructuring.
It has been a torrid 12 months for Afren, which last year sacked its chief executive and chief operating officer over their acceptance of unauthorised payments related to the company's activities in Nigeria.
More than $20m was repaid by the two former executives under a settlement announced earlier this month, but Afren suffered a further setback last week when it said it had overstated its oil reserves in Kurdistan.
Like other oil companies, it is also having to contend with the plunging oil price, which has more than halved since last summer.
Major companies and minnows alike are being forced to slash their cost-base, with BP's decision last week to lay off 300 workers in its North Sea operations only the latest example.
The broader economic consequences of the falling oil price are likely to be a central theme at this week's World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos.
Earlier this week, Seplat was given an additional two weeks by the Takeover Panel to formalise an offer for Afren, while other prospective bidders are said to be weighing approaches for the company.
Afren and Morgan Stanley both declined to comment on Tuesday.
