Thursday evening business bulletin
Banking giant Barclays today agreed a £35m deal to buy the Goldfish credit card business.
The deal is set to add around 1.7 million customers to the bank’s 9.6 million Barclaycard card holders, if approved by competition authorities.
Goldfish was the first credit card firm to launch a loyalty scheme in 1996, rewarding customers with points to spend in selected high street stores.
Drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline today warned it would be hit this year by lower sales of its Avandia diabetes treatment and heavier competition from rivals.
Last May, Avandia was rocked by claims - strongly denied by GSK - that the drug increased the risk of heart attacks.
The company also flagged up heavier generic competition to products such as Wellbutrin and Coreg, which treat depression and hypertension.
The Bank of England and results from heavyweight stocks BT, GlaxoSmithKline and Rolls-Royce combined to depress the London market today.
The FTSE 100 Index was 129.4 points lower at 5746 by lunchtime, with much of the fall coming after the Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates by quarter of a percentage point. The move had been widely forecast, but there was an element of disappointment that policymakers did not go further.
The pound at 4:30pm was US$1.9408 compared to US$1.9598 at the previous close while the euro at 4:30pm was £0.7473 compared to £0.7469 at the previous close.
Share
