Travel group Intosol floats in London amid efforts to raise funds for South African expansion October 22, 2018 German-based luxury holiday travel company Intosol is floating on the London Stock Exchange today, as it looks for capital to expand its South African boutique hotel business. Intosol, a high-end travel firm headquartered in Hannover, is listing on London’s main market to fund the acquisition of several hotel sites in South Africa, including a commercial [...]
EU seeks to lessen tensions with Italy as the eurozone economy posts halting growth for third quarter October 19, 2018 The EU hopes to reduce tensions with Italy over its inflammatory 2019 budget, according to European economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici. Saying no decision had yet been made about whether or not Italy's budget would pass muster with the European Commission, Moscovici told a news conference today that he wanted to “reduce tensions and maintain a [...]
Public borrowing falls to a 16-year low ahead of Philip Hammond’s autumn Budget October 19, 2018 Public borrowing fell to a 16-year low for the current financial year-to-date, figures released today reveal. The deficit stood at £19.9bn for the year to September, £10.7bn less than the same period a year ago and the lowest for the year-to-date since 2002. Read more: British consumer borrowing growth slowest since 2015 as debt stutters [...]
Auditors face fresh headache as shareholder adviser eyes industry October 18, 2018 The world’s largest adviser to shareholders is to ramp up its scrutiny of auditors, in a move that will pile further pressure on the UK’s embattled beancounters amid a series of industry controversies. Auditors will be facing another headache at their shareholder meetings next year after the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) today unveiled plans to [...]
There’s nothing to fear from the latest easing back of Dodd-Frank’s reach October 17, 2018 Shortly after his inauguration as President, Donald Trump pledged to do “a big number” on Dodd-Frank regulations, labelling the post-crisis measures “a disaster” and promising to “kill” parts of the legislation. While the rhetoric was typically Trumpian, the reality has proven to be somewhat more modest. Nonetheless, a change in the White House's direction of [...]
Sterling falls on weaker UK inflation data as food and drink prices drop October 17, 2018 Inflation slowed in September as the prices of meat and chocolate fell, the first fall in the price of statisticians' basket of goods since April. Consumer price index (CPI) inflation fell from 2.7 per cent in August to 2.4 per cent in September, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said today. The relatively steep fall [...]
Can we innovate better outside the EU? Economic lessons from the Nobel prize winner October 17, 2018 Gordon Brown’s time as chancellor will be remembered for many things. A sense of humour would be conspicuously absent from this list. But he provoked a great deal of mirth unintentionally in a speech shortly before the 1997 General Election on the theme of “post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory”. Read more: US duo win the Nobel [...]
Economist Hernando de Soto: ‘Our systems of representation are broken’ October 17, 2018 Hernando de Soto has dedicated much of his life to trying to help the world's poorest countries develop to the level of advanced economies, but now he is wondering if Western nations need to re-examine how we think about government. De Soto is one of the world’s most prominent development economists, thanks to the central [...]
Why a Canada-style Brexit deal is unlikely October 16, 2018 Brexit is now less than six months away. Yet somehow, a deal feels further away than it did just a few weeks ago. The stakes are fairly high. Models estimate that GDP will shrink by much as eight per cent. Some of the damage has already been done via the corrosive effects of uncertainty and anticipation of a [...]
Ignore the chancellor, we don’t need Chequers to end austerity October 16, 2018 I generally presume cynicism in politicians’ arguments. But Philip Hammond implying a Chequers-style relationship with the EU is needed to “end austerity” was shocking in its brazenness. Ahead of the October Budget, the chancellor has echoed Theresa May in suggesting that looser government spending is just around the corner. Their calculation seems to be that [...]