Aim companies have markedly improved corporate governance reporting, study finds December 3, 2018 Companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market (Aim) have significantly upped their corporate governance standards since a September 2018 rule change, an annual review has revealed. The market, which lists smaller companies and has less onerous regulations, was reviewed by accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young and lobbying group Quoted Companies Alliance. Their findings showed improvements in transparency [...]
Scrap stamp duty for pensioners to free up homes for youngsters, says thinktank December 3, 2018 A UK thinktank has called for the government to scrap stamp duty for pensioners to encourage downsizing and free up homes for younger families. Policy Exchange’s new report reveals that 1.1m homes in England with two or more spare bedrooms are lived in by a single person aged over 65. The report says the lower stamp [...]
Orchard Street snaps up £55m building in Soho’s filmland December 3, 2018 Property investment firm Orchard Street has snapped up a £55m Soho building home to a British film production company. The office space in the property at 141 Wardour Street is fully let to Moving Picture Company, while retail space on the ground and basement floors is home to Princi, an Italian restaurant and bakery part-owned [...]
PwC loses FTSE 100 client crown in audit pass-the-parcel December 3, 2018 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the UK’s biggest accountancy firm, has had its crown – holding the highest number of FTSE 100 clients – snatched by rival KPMG. It is the first time PwC has lost its position as the leading auditor of the UK’s top blue-chip firms. KPMG now audits 28 FTSE 100 firms, to PwC’s 27, [...]
Pubs reap rewards of World Cup summer as third quarter beer sales grow, but Brexit uncertainty looms December 3, 2018 The haze of a long, hot World Cup summer drove British drinkers to buy more beer in the third quarter than the year before for the first time in more than 15 years. UK pubs saw beer sales grow 0.9 per cent year on year from August to October, with around 941.5m pints changing hands over [...]
Football fan club Otro nets £50m backing from 23 Capital December 3, 2018 Digital football fan club Otro has received backing worth tens of millions of pounds from venture capital firm 23 Capital ahead of its eagerly-anticipated launch today. Online platform Otro, which provides fans with curated content from global football stars, today revealed it had secured backing following weeks of growing speculation about the new site. City [...]
Consumers warned of Christmas cons as fake goods cases continue to rise December 3, 2018 Shoppers have been warned to be on the alert this Christmas as the number of court cases involving high value fake goods continues to rise. There have been 39 cases involving counterfeit goods worth more than £116m in the last two years, according to new data from KPMG’s Fraud Barometer. The research found that more [...]
British tax burden at 50-year high, according to TaxPayers’ Alliance December 2, 2018 The TaxPayers’ Alliance campaign group has called for lower taxes as ‘poorest’ families struggle with current levels. The TPA, linked to the Atlas Network of free market advocates, said the UK’s tax take was at a 50-year high of 34.6 per cent of GDP. National current receipts are at a 21-year high as a proportion [...]
Macron feels the heat as protests ramp up December 2, 2018 When Emmanuel Macron landed in Paris after the G20 summit in Argentina his motorcade delivered him straight to the Arc de Triomphe, where he was confronted with a vivid depiction of the anger felt by many of his citizens – and of his own place in this crisis. One of the country's most famous monuments [...]
Flybe and Monarch in bitter dispute over alleged breach of maintenance contract December 2, 2018 Beleaguered airline Flybe is locked in a war of words with Monarch Aircraft Engineering (MAEL) over a terminated maintenance contract. Exeter-based airline Flybe, which put itself up for sale last month, terminated a contract with the aircraft repair company for maintenance services. The airline has accused MAEL of breaching the contract by withdrawing its services “unilaterally”. “Flybe [...]