ALL ABOARD October 11, 2010 The QUEEN has officially named Cunard’s 92,000-tonne Queen Elizabeth liner, the cruise company’s third new ship in six years. The monarch named the vessel in a quayside ceremony at Southampton. Cunard ordered the ship to meet growing demand for cruise holidays, with 1.5m Britons booking last year. The ceremony came 72 years after the Queen [...]
BETFAIR IN THREAT TO QUIT THE UK October 11, 2010 BETFAIR may quit the UK over a proposed tax increase and government inaction over offshore gambling websites, it emerged over the weekend. City A.M. understands the online bookmaker, which only last week confirmed it would go ahead with a planned £1.5bn flotation on the stock market, has drawn up a contingency plan that could see [...]
GREEN: PUBLIC SECTOR IS WASTING MILLIONS October 11, 2010 DAVID Cameron will this morning vow to overhaul decades of wasteful public spending following a damning review by retail tycoon Sir Philip Green. Green, who was given access to departments’ accounts, will accuse the public sector of lacking a coherent spending plan. He will call for a shake-up of the government’s property leasing strategy and [...]
Labour makes tax promise October 11, 2010 ED Miliband yesterday promised there would be no new personal tax rises if Labour wins the next election. His pledge, which has echoes of Tony Blair’s famous promise not to hike income tax, comes as the new Labour leader tries to appeal to thecentre ground. “I’m not proposing rises in personal taxation beyond those set [...]
Why it is time for UK Universities plc October 11, 2010 HIGHER education ought to be one of Britain’s flagship industries. On the face of it, the UK’s universities are already doing well, educating large numbers of overseas students and in most cases charging them high fees, generating vast amounts of export earnings for the UK. Many are expanding, with the University of Nottingham operating a [...]
CFO confidence crashes October 11, 2010 MORE than a third of chief financial officers expect a double dip recession as confidence crashes to its lowest level in 18 months. As a result, finance bosses are maintaining a strong focus on keeping costs down and three quarters warn against taking risks, according to a Deloitte survey. However, larger companies are no longer [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING October 10, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES EUROZONE BOND INVESTORS ACCUSED OF OVERREACTING Investors in Eurozone bond markets stand accused of letting “animal spirits” affect their judgment on the risk of a European debt default, creating a situation where financial markets could force weaker countries into excessive budget cutting. A senior official at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [...]
Banks urged to cut dividends October 10, 2010 A more proactive supervisory policy forcing banks to cut dividend payouts in times of stress may help shield the economy from future credit shocks, Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren said yesterday. Rosengren, speaking at an event on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund (IMF) meetings, said banks were slow to cut payouts in the [...]
Stretched out Greek loans October 10, 2010 Bailout loans to Greece could be stretched out or replaced if refinancing worries lingered in markets, the IMF said yesterday, but it currently has no concrete plans to do so. Earlier in the day, a top European Central Bank official had said the IMF was considering whether to lengthen Greece’s €110bn (£96.4bn) loan programme, launched [...]
IMF talks fail to allay currency war fears October 10, 2010 CRUNCH talks between leaders of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) member countries yesterday failed to allay fears of an all-out currency war. Finance chiefs had hoped to thrash out concrete plans for dealing with uneven global growth, which is behind increasingly choleric currency tensions. Rhetoric between China and the US has been stepped up in [...]