Jefferies sets the mood for Wall Street’s quarter with record revenues October 1, 2021 Jefferies reported record revenues for the third quarter and said its dealmaking backlog for the fourth quarter had also reached new heights, in the first results of the season from Wall Street. Total revenues for the quarter hit a record $1.38bn, up 78 per cent from the $777m reported in the same period a year [...]
SFO launches money laundering probe into £150m leasehold investment schemes September 29, 2021 Following a dawn raid this morning, the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has launched a fraud and money laundering investigation into two companies that are suspected of having misled investors into funnelling around £150m into fraudulent leasehold schemes across the country. A group of Alpha-branded companies is being investigated for fraudulently misleading investors into purchasing [...]
‘Alpha-Flation’: A Private Market Syndrome September 28, 2021 | City Talk In private equity (PE), there are more ways to calculate the alpha of a portfolio or fund than any other asset class. And in no sector other than private markets does investing in the average fund seem to go so poorly. Should it be this way? Is the average private market fund a bad fund [...]
Cop26 sponsor NatWest named and shamed for links to Arctic oil and gas drillers September 27, 2021 NatWest is under scrutiny from campaigners due to it financing fossil fuel developers while sponsoring the Cop26 climate summit NatWest is the banking sponsor of the Glasgow conference — where countries will pledge to reduce carbon emissions as part of a wideranging global effort — but was still providing underwriting and loans to energy companies [...]
Exclusive: Fund managers say UK equities are still undervalued despite Brexit and Covid bounce back September 24, 2021 Nearly nine in ten professional investors from the UK, US and Germany believe UK equities are undervalued, according to new research shared exclusively with City A.M. this morning. The investors, who collectively manage over $300bn, said in a MBH survey that one of the key reasons for optimism around UK equities is that the country [...]
Brexit-proof: City’s share of European investment management market larger than Frankfurt, Paris and Zurich combined September 23, 2021 The City of London’s share of the European investment management market is larger than the combined total of Paris, Frankfurt or Zurich. It is by far the largest investment management hub in Europe with a market share of 37 per cent, according to new data shared with City A.M. today. The City of London and [...]
Startup city: Square Mile investors make London the top place after Silicon Valley for tech firms September 22, 2021 London is second only to Silicon Valley for the best place for startups to thrive, according to a definitive ranking of the world’s major tech and business hubs. The capital tied with New York in second place to the Californian area synonymous with billion-dollar valuations and tech bros – and far ahead of the next [...]
Nation of entrepreneurs: UK home to more small businesses than any other country in Europe September 22, 2021 The number of small businesses has skyrocketed in the past year. With a wave of redundancies and furloughing alongside spending more time at home, people took the opportunity to set up their own small businesses. This has meant that the world has seen an increase in ‘micro enterprises’, businesses with less than 10 employees. To find out which countries [...]
‘Quality losses’ matter more to investors than ‘quality gains’ September 21, 2021 | City Talk People dislike losses more than they like gains. Known as loss aversion, this phenomenon, or behavioural bias, serves as a cornerstone of prospect theory, developed by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky more than 40 years ago. A forthcoming paper, which I co-authored with Didem Kurt, Koen Pauwels and Shuba Srinivasan, applies this theory to product [...]
Not such a green City: Two thirds of firms have zero plans for sustainability September 20, 2021 More than two thirds of all businesses across the UK have no environmental sustainability policy, according to new research shared with City A.M. this morning. A survey by recycling group Suez and the British Chambers of Commerce found that 64 per cent of around 1,000 businesses surveyed said they had no such plan. Overall only [...]