FTSE 100 sees slight fall as energy giants face downturn July 15, 2021 London’s FTSE 100 fell slightly this morning as the energy sector and domestically focused companies both faced losses. The capital’s premier index fell by 0.02 per cent, owing to losses in energy stocks, notably BP and Royal Dutch Shell. Just Eat and JD Sports also saw losses as Covid-19 cases soar across the country. The [...]
Job vacancies rise above pre-pandemic levels after lockdown measures eased July 15, 2021 UK job vacancies rose to above pre-pandemic levels for the first time in 15 months, as average wages showed signs of growth. New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed 862,000 job vacancies in April to June this year. The figure is almost 10 per cent higher than January to March before the [...]
Experian delivers strong sales performance July 15, 2021 Credit reporting company Experian saw sales increase by a third in the past three months up to June 30, raising its annual revenue forecast. The Ireland-based firm now expects to see total revenue growth for the full year range between 13 and 15 per cent, with organic revenue growth making up 9 to 11 per [...]
Seventy per cent of FTSE 350 companies have no female exec board members July 15, 2021 The pandemic has set back gender parity prospects for top jobs by four years, according to a new report. Seventy percent of companies on the FTSE 350 have no female executives on their main board and will lag behind men until 2036 amid the pandemic. There has been a sudden slow rise for female appointments [...]
Government refuses to commit releasing probe into Chinese takeover of UK chip plant July 15, 2021 The government has refused to commit to releasing a review into the takeover of the UK’s largest chip plant by a Chinese-owned semiconductor firm. Boris Johnson announced last week that his national security adviser would probe the takeover of Newport Wafer Fab, after his government initially said there were no grounds to intervene in the [...]
High risk clients: Furloughed workers and self-employed with Covid grants refused mortgages July 15, 2021 Furloughed workers and self-employed people who have received government grants during the pandemic have been refused mortgages by some of the UK’s major banks. This comes as some brokers argued that banks see people who have received Covid-related grants as high risk. Two of the UK’s biggest high street banks, NatWest and the Royal Bank [...]
BlackRock hikes wages by 8 per cent July 15, 2021 BlackRock is set to provide its employees an ‘off-cycle’ salary hike. The world’s largest asset manager plans to boost pay by 8 per cent. “Your initiative, commitment and teamwork helped ensure that through the pandemic we supported our clients,” Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink and President Rob Kapito said. The company is the latest finance giant [...]
China’s post-pandemic growth slows as government aims for more stable course July 15, 2021 China’s fast rebound from the Covid-19 pandemic has now slowed, according to official figures. The nation’s GDP for the second quarter of 2021 was up 7.9 per cent on the same period in 2020, falling short of economist’s forecasts of 8.1 per cent growth. It was less than half the growth seen in the first [...]
The City post-Brexit: A discussion about the Square Mile’s future in Global Britain July 14, 2021 This discussion focuses on the Treasury’s strategy paper on MIFID2, the proposed review of the prospectus regime, the post-Hill Review and the latest Treasury paper on Solvency2. Also on how and whether the UK should open up more to cryptos in the wake of the crackdown on Binance, and thoughts on what we could/should do [...]
Exclusive: ‘The recovery is going to be rocky and uneven’, warns fraud fighter Martin Sweeney July 14, 2021 Londoner Martin Sweeney started off at taxi app Hailo as a founding engineer. While there, he worked on a project to predict which orders were likely to be fraudulent. Finding nothing suitable on the market to solve this problem, or at least with the speed or accuracy he and his team wanted, Sweeney and some colleagues decided to [...]