Aberdeen-based firm listed on FTSE 250 knocked back unsolicited approach from Dubai-based Sidara
The British oil services company John Wood Group has rejected a £1.4bn takeover offer from a Dubai-based rival, Sidara, which “fundamentally undervalued” the company.
Aberdeen-based Wood is the latest British company on the London Stock Exchange to face takeover speculation amid deepening concerns that UK-listed stocks are undervalued compared with other markets.
Continue reading...Government wants to make life easier for working people, he says at Scottish Tory conference
Rishi Sunak has issued a strong hint that there could be further cuts in national insurance rates in next week’s budget.
The prime minister told reporters gathered at the Scottish Tory conference in Aberdeen on Friday that he wanted to make life easier for working people across the UK, particularly at a time when the Scottish National party government was raising income taxes from April for anyone in Scotland earning above £28,850.
Continue reading...About 500 council and private properties in Balnagask were identified as having Raac panels in an inspection in 2023
Hundreds of people are being moved out of their homes in Aberdeen after the discovery of potentially collapse-risk concrete.
Panels made from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) were found in about 500 homes in the Balnagask area of Aberdeen, including 364 council properties, in 2023.
Continue reading...Electricity generated on Shetland could be used to fuel the proposed Rosebank field, instead of homes
Electricity from a new onshore windfarm could be used to power the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea, campaigners are warning, ahead of an imminent decision over whether to approve the project.
The huge Rosebank oilfield is three times bigger than the controversial Cambo field that was put on hold more than a year ago. It has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil and its final approval is expected to reach the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, in the next few weeks. It is expected to be approved after Rishi Sunak hinted last month that it would be “economically illiterate” not to invest in UK oil and gas because Britain will remain reliant on fossil fuels for “the next few decades”.
Continue reading...Author’s method acting approach to writing terrified local people in Aberdeenshire as he perched on the rocks like a bat
In August 1894, at the end of a month-long stay to research his embryonic novel, Bram Stoker wrote in the visitors’ book at the Kilmarnock Arms on the Aberdeenshire coast that he had been “delighted with everything and everybody” and hoped to return soon.
According to new research, though, the feeling was not entirely mutual. Stoker, a genial Irishman usually known for his cheeriness, was experimenting with what would become known as “method acting” to get under the skin of his new character, one Count Dracula. Local historian Mike Shepherd, who has spent seven years researching Stoker, says the author’s links with the London theatre inspired Stoker to try inhabiting his character in a different way.
Continue reading...Colourful ceremony marks artefacts’ homecoming more than a century after they were pillaged by British troops
Two Benin bronzes were returned on Saturday to a traditional palace in Nigeria, more than a century after they were pillaged by British troops, raising hopes that thousands more artefacts could finally be returned to their ancestral home.
The artefacts, mostly in Europe, were stolen by explorers and colonisers from the once-mighty Benin Kingdom, now south-western Nigeria, and are among Africa’s most significant heritage objects. They were created as early as the 16th century onwards, according to the British Museum.
Continue reading...In an exclusive interview, the legendary manager and son Jason reflect on the brain haemorrhage that nearly killed him and the film they have just made, his upbringing in Scotland, the lows and highs at Manchester United, his admiration for Steven Gerrard … and that Champions League final
“You’re lying on your bed and you are on your own,” Sir Alex Ferguson says as he remembers being in hospital exactly three years ago this week when, after suffering a brain haemorrhage, he came close to death. “It can become lonely and frightening,” the greatest manager in the history of British football continues as he relives that raw memory.
Ferguson and I are just starting an interview which is shaped by so many layered and rollicking recollections. Memories of the ghostly shipyards of Glasgow and his teeming life as a boy in Govan ripple through him. He relives the pain and sectarianism he experienced at Rangers, the fire and transformation he generated at Aberdeen and the early abuse and enduring glory of his 27 years at Manchester United. Memories of his father, with whom he fell out until football reunited them, merge into an evocation of everything his wife Cathy has done for him.
Continue reading...Aberdeen says it will repatriate a bust while Cambridge museum has ‘expectation’ its collection could be returned
Regional UK museums could lead a wave of repatriations of disputed Benin bronzes – most of them looted by British forces in 1897 – in defiance of the British government’s stance that institutions should “retain and explain” contested artefacts.
On Thursday, the University of Aberdeen confirmed it would repatriate a bust of an Oba, or king of Benin, which it has had since the 1950s, “within weeks”, a landmark move for a British institution.
Continue reading...Businesses lose total of £3.4m in 2019 despite first signs of profitability at his flagship Turnberry resort
Donald Trump’s Scottish golf courses have again reported significant losses, totalling £3.4m, despite the first signs of profitability at his flagship Turnberry resort.
The annual accounts for Trump Turnberry’s parent company, Golf Recreation Scotland, show the luxury hotel and golf resort in Ayrshire lost £2.3m in 2019 after ploughing more money into upgrading its facilities.
Continue reading...Wooden fragment from at least 3000BC discovered by chance by Egyptian university researcher
A lost artefact from the Great Pyramid of Giza, one of only three objects ever recovered from inside the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, has been found in a chance discovery at the University of Aberdeen.
Curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany, originally from Egypt, was reviewing items in the university’s Asia collection when she came across a cigar box marked with her country’s former flag.
Continue reading...Nicola Sturgeon announces closure of pubs and restaurants as officials link 32 pubs and golf courses to outbreak
Nicola Sturgeon has warned that an emergency lockdown in Aberdeen could extend to other towns in the region after health officials linked 32 pubs and golf courses to the outbreak in the city.
The first minister said all pubs and restaurants in the city had to close from 5pm on Wednesday, as she barred people from visiting other households indoors and urged residents to avoid non-essential journeys greater than five miles.
Continue reading...The word “douce” sits easily alongside a place like Balmedie, but would never be seen within a million miles of Donald Trump or any of his enterprises. Yet this pleasant coastal village a few miles north of Aberdeen is at risk of forever being associated with America’s pantomime president and the locals are aghast at the prospect.
Last week planning officials at Aberdeenshire council signalled their assent for plans by the Trump Organisation to build a sprawling housing estate comprising 550 homes and golfers’ chalets on farmland adjacent to the US president’s exclusive golf facility a little further down the coast. The plans will now go before a full meeting of the council in April.
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