Business week in review

In profit...

BT's new boss Gavin Patterson kicked off his reign at the company on Thursday with a steady set of results that proved its £1bn gamble on Premier League football is paying off so far. Revenues stopped falling for the first time in four years with BT Sport drawing an average audience of 913,000 a match.

Marg Randles, co-founder of the Busy Bees nursery chain, also had a good week after selling the business to the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan on Thursday for about £220m.

Antonio Horta-Osorio of Lloyds Banking Group was another with a smile on his face, as he promised big dividends over the coming months, buoyed by the part-nationalised lender's recovery from the financial crisis.

... at a loss

Retail guru Mary Portas was slapped down once again by her rival Bill Grimsey in front of MPs on Tuesday. He effectively claimed her report into the struggling sector was no more than a vanity project. Ouch.

Meanwhile, former Co-op Bank boss Barry Tootell was also before MPs on the same day, explaining his role in the bank's near collapse earlier this year. Mr Tootell seemed more assured than some of his former colleagues have in the past few weeks, but did little to dispel anger about the Co-op's ill-fated bid for 632 Lloyds branches.

Standard Chartered's chief executive Peter Sands was also feeling the heat after his bank revealed its revenues had slowed because of tough trading in Korea and Singapore.