The Beginning of Regular Posts

Hi all,Sorry for not posting for a while, been pretty busy really. This is hopefully the first of daily posts taking a look at current affairs and other items of interest.....

What is Bennison Holdings:- As the name suggests Bennison Holdings is a holding company. It is comprised of three divisions - Innovation & Research, Operations and Investments. Operations contains the main company Commonwealth Intelligence (CI) which is devoted providing intelligence and consultancy to promote British business interests at home and abroad. Investments manages any investments held by other divisions of the business. Innovation and Research comprises divisions borne out of the need for specific solutions. For example Airborne Sensors is developing a cheap airborne surveillance sensor for CI. This division also includes a small mathematics company that is developing a software package, however this a very small effort.

World Trade Talks:- As you have probably heard the latest trade talks being held in Geneva have failed. Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner was heard saying that it wasn't inevitable. Personally I disagree with this view as the american negotiating team is likely to have been leaned on by many big businesses that wouldn't be happy with losing farming subsidies etc.

Tesco Finance:- Tesco have recently bought the 50% stake held by RBS in the Tesco's personal finance business, this means that Tesco now has sole ownership of it's personal finance division and can grow and expand without worrying about damaging RBS's market share. At the moment TPF have 5.5 million customers, 4.3% of the car insurance market, 390,000 savings accounts and a 6.9% share of the credit card market (this equates to 1.3 million credit card customers), so there is plenty of room for expansion. Apparently Tesco will consider launching a basic bank account in the future, but to do this will need approval from the FSA. Tesco is one company that I keep a close eye on, so I'm sure I will be posting more about Tesco in the future.

That's all for today, more tomorrow ...