Annuity market to collapse by £8bn because of rule switch March 20, 2014 SAVERS fleeing the pension annuity market will cause it to collapse by two-thirds over the next 18 months, analysts predict, as the fallout from the Budget continued to hit markets. Barclays analysts said the annuity market could shrink from £12bn a year to just £4bn by September 2015, due to changes announced in the Budget, [...]
Shake-up of oil rig duty could shrink profits March 20, 2014 THE OIL and gas industry yesterday warned that tax changes on drilling rigs outlined in the Budget would put UK North Sea projects at risk. The International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) said that changes to the bareboat charter, which will result in higher rates for drilling rigs and floating vessels, “will cause the UK offshore [...]
What the other papers say this morning – 21 March 2014 March 20, 2014 FINANCIAL TIMES Turkey blocks access to Twitter Turkey blocked access to Twitter late last night, after Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prime minister, vowed to eradicate the social media site, which has been extensively used to spread corruption allegations against his government. “Twitter and so on, we will root them out,” Mr Erdogan told an election rally [...]
600,000 more people fall into higher rate tax March 20, 2014 THE NUMBER of higher rate taxpayers will jump from 4.7m this year to 5.3m in 2015-16, a think-tank warned yesterday, saying an extra 2m people will have fallen into the 45p bracket since the start of the coalition’s term. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) revealed that, with wages being lifted faster than the increase in the [...]
Ladbrokes and William Hill slide as betting duty hike hits firms March 20, 2014 BOOKMAKERS William Hill and Ladbrokes both continued to suffer on the stock market yesterday following the government’s increase in tax on fixed odds betting terminals used in their high street stores. William Hill raised its initial estimate of the impact of the tax from £16m to £22m, prompting its shares to fall 1.4 per cent [...]
BG Group plans redundancies to slash costs March 20, 2014 OIL AND gas explorer BG Group is targeting UK redundancies as new management looks to slash costs and streamline the business, City A.M. has learnt. It is understood that the FTSE 100-quoted firm offered its UK employees the opportunity to apply for a voluntary redundancy package earlier this month. BG has 1,500 staff in the [...]
Surprise last minute deal on banking union March 20, 2014 EUROPE’S banks will fund a new bailout fund more quickly than expected, under a deal struck in the early hours of yesterday morning. The Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) is the latest step of the banking union plans slowly being negotiated in Brussels. There were fears the European Parliament and EU Council would not be able [...]
Bond trader fined for auction abuse over QE March 20, 2014 EX-BOND trader Mark Stevenson was fined £662,000 and banned from the sector yesterday after the City watchdog found he had abused the market in a bid to profit from the Bank of England’s quantitative easing (QE) programme. In October 2011 Stevenson bought up a large volume of illiquid gilts, so that he could push up the price in [...]
Hitachi to move its rail business over to Britain March 20, 2014 HITACHI, the company behind Japan’s bullet trains, is moving its global rail headquarters to the UK, cementing the firm’s focus on contracts here and in Europe. The company is due to open a factory in Newton Aycliffe next year, creating an initial 730 jobs in the north east of England. Hitachi Rail aims to expand [...]
Inside Track: In Barclays we trust: Retail investors rely on bank for new issues March 20, 2014 @hellierd There’s a page on the Barclays website that directs customers to the joys of investing in new issues and flotations. It is headlined: “Access investments before they become available on the market.” The trouble is that unless Barclays itself is working on one of the current crop of share issues, it is highly likely [...]